Cold And Grey
by oucellogal
Summary: When a murdered surgical resident's stethoscope turns up, the squad reopens the case. Suspicion, intrigue, and of course, donut wars, abound. A followup to "Every Time Two Fools Collide."
1. A Hard Day's Night

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Author's Note: Welcome back to the "Every Time Two Fools Collide" Universe! A few notes about this one…

I have a full-fledged sequel to ETTFC in the works, dealing with lots of L/S relationship stuff, a few cases, and some other fun surprises. This story is more of a bridge between ETTFC and the true sequel. It takes place in between the two stories, but it doesn't serve to advance the plotlines. Plot advancement is still to come, and hopefully you'll find it worth the wait.

This is my first attempt at a story that's written exactly like an episode, so the personal lives of the detectives, though present, will take a back seat to the case. Lilly and Scotty are still a couple, and Kat and Vera are…well, they haven't shared with me yet exactly what's going on with them, but we'll see. As such, you'll see a few L/S couple-y moments, but this story really isn't about them, it's about the case.

Now on to the case: This story is also a crossover with Grey's Anatomy, in that the victim and the suspects are creations of Shonda Rhimes and (sometimes) happily exist over in that universe. I'm just borrowing them for a bit. Many of the flashbacks are taken directly from Grey's Anatomy episodes, and if there is interest, I can provide YouTube links to those.

Anyway, I'm doing my usual trick of borrowing characters from other shows, but, as always, I hope to do it in such a way that you need not have seen the show for this to make sense. If you're just a fan of Cold Case, you'll enjoy the mystery. If you're a fan of both, you'll probably get a few more of the humorous elements. If you're just a fan of Grey's, hopefully you'll forgive me for killing off one of your characters. It simply had to be done. Besides, I never really liked her, anyway.

Finally, a bit of a disclaimer: I've taken on some added responsibilities in my Real Life, which might make my updates a little less frequent than you're accustomed to, but I hope you'll find them worth the wait!

Okay, enough rambling. On with the story.

* * *

**Chapter One: A Hard Day's Night**

**June 30, 2005**

_The party was just getting started. Drinks were flowing freely, the music was playing, and bright colors adorned the room. Assorted young people, mostly in their twenties, though some were clearly older, wandered to and fro, talking, laughing, looking around the room at one another. At first glance, it seemed similar to a college party, but closer inspection revealed a key difference. These people, however, instead of tossing pick-up lines, seemed to be checking out the competition._

_In the center of the room, a tall, __shapely __blonde wearing a satiny floral miniskirt extended her hand to a young man of similar age who, she could tell just by looking, was uncomfortable wearing dress clothes. She knew he'd be out of them the second he hit the door of wherever it was he lived._

"_Hi! Izzie Stevens, Washington," she cheerfully introduced herself._

_The young man's eyes raked up and down Izzie's curvaceous form, simultaneously checking her out and sizing her up. This was his competition? Nah…couldn't be._

"_Alex Karev, Iowa," he replied automatically, not quite sure how to react to this one._

"_This is nice, right?" Izzie enthused, having decided before she even got there that the best way to meet the competition was to be sweet as honey now, then kick their asses in the operating room later. "They throw a mixer for the new interns."_

_Alex laughed slightly. "It's just an excuse to get us all happy and drunk before they torture us," he replied cynically. While Izzie giggled nervously in response, Alex's gaze traveled over the room, noticing a tall, silver-haired, African American man schmoozing with some other partygoers, a sissy-looking guy with curly hair who was standing on his tiptoes to get a better look at…something, Alex wasn't sure what. Over in a corner, a curly-haired Asian chick looked like she wanted to strangle the guy she was staring at, and a blonde in a hot black dress laughed politely at something someone else had said. _

_Turning his attention back to Izzie, Alex responded with another slight laugh, then gestured to her with his beer bottle before taking a sip. "What program you in?" he asked casually. No way in hell was this chick a surgeon like he was._

"_Surgery," Izzie answered matter-of-factly, meeting his gaze with a wide smile._

_Alex lowered the beer bottle from his lips and glanced at Izzie in disbelief. "Seriously," he replied._

"_Seriously," she returned brightly. _

_Alex stared at her momentarily, raking his eyes up and down her body again. _

"_What?" Izzie demanded. _

_Caught off guard, Alex fumbled around for an answer. "I—I just had you pegged for…gynie or peds or something," he explained, still not quite believing what he'd just heard from the blonde._

_Izzie met his gaze. "You don't think I can be a surgeon?" she asked in disbelief. "I can be a surgeon," she asserted. She was used to people not taking her seriously. One look at her blonde hair and big boobs, and she was instantly pigeonholed as a vapid, giggling bimbette whose only hope for making it big was through her body, not her brain. She'd been underestimated her entire life, and she thought that finally earning that medical degree might change some minds…but seeing the casual disdain with which this Alex Karev regarded her made her realize, with a sinking heart, that he wasn't going to be any different. Not that he looked like surgeon material, either, she thought bitterly. He'd probably been a jock in high school. _

"_Surgery's hard-core," Alex warned with a lopsided grin._

"_I'm hard-core," Izzie replied, not missing a beat. She congratulated herself on her ability to remain outwardly calm, even though she was seething on the inside._

"_You won't last the first year, babe," Alex declared smoothly, taking another swig of beer. If this was his competition, surgical residency at Philadelphia Grace Hospital would be a piece of cake._

_Izzie glared at him for a moment as he finished off his beer, scoffing silently at his prediction. People doubt you all the time, she reminded herself. And they're wrong. They're always, always wrong. Taking a deep breath, she shrugged off her encounter with Alex. She'd prove him wrong soon enough. _

_They ended their conversation, and Izzie headed for the refreshments table, eagerly selecting a couple of brownies from the dessert section. They weren't nearly as good as what she could whip up, given some time and the proper ingredients, but they were brownies, and brownies were always welcome. While there, she bumped into a sensitive-looking young man with dark, curly hair and green eyes, whose name she learned was George O'Malley. They spent the rest of the evening chatting like old friends, and at the end of the party, she shrugged into a bright pink coat as she prepared to leave with George. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Alex, that jackass from earlier who she'd almost managed to forget about, leaving the party with his arm around some slutty-looking redhead and a lascivious gleam in his eyes. Squaring her shoulders, she repeated her promise to prove Alex wrong, then dismissed him from her mind, finished putting on her coat and turned back toward her new friend, George._

"_Isn't this great?" she chirped, bubbling over with enthusiasm. "Tomorrow, we're gonna be surgeons." He agreed with a nod, and the two of them headed out of the room and disappeared into the night._

* * *

_The blonde doctor's body sprawled awkwardly on the wet pavement, a dark crimson stain slowly spreading over the front of her light blue surgical scrubs, her doelike brown eyes staring up at the midnight sky, wide and unseeing. A gloved hand reached down, lifted her stethoscope from her neck, and running footsteps mingled with the wail of ambulance sirens as they disappeared into the night._

* * *

_A detective sighed as he closed the lid of the evidence box marked "Stevens, I." This case had gone absolutely nowhere, like so many of them did. It was cases like this that he hated the most: leaving families without closure and doers out on the street. That murdering scumbag was out there somewhere, he knew, and as he shelved the box with great reluctance, he vowed that somehow, someday, Izzie Stevens' killer would get his just desserts. But they had more pressing issues, more recent cases, cases with better leads, and they were short-staffed as it was. So, they had to let this one go. With another sigh, the detective tapped the box gently, then turned to walk back out into the squad room._

* * *

**May, 2007**

Detective Lilly Rush sat at her desk on a bright spring morning, dashing through some forms and sipping coffee from her mug, noting wryly that the office brew was up to its usual quality. It tasted terrible, as always, but she hoped it would provide her with enough rocket fuel to finish filling out the paperwork from their most recent case. They'd gotten the confession last night, but she and Scotty had been too…distracted…to finish filling out the forms afterward. With a sigh, Lilly took another sip and tried in vain to concentrate.

Suddenly, she felt a warm, familiar hand on her shoulder, and love flooded her heart. _Scotty. _For four years, he'd been her partner. Well, they'd been friends, too, most of the time, anyway, but then last December, they'd taken a road trip to Nashville, gotten drunk their last night in town, and had somehow wound up in bed together. She'd thought at the time it was the dumbest thing she'd ever done and tried to keep it from happening again, but that had proven impossible, and, to Lilly's complete and utter surprise, she and Scotty had fallen in love. Their plan to keep their budding romance a secret from their nosy co-workers had been successful for only a short time, and once it was exposed, their boss, John Stillman, had informed them, in no uncertain terms, that although they could both remain in the squad, they could no longer be partners. Although it had been sad at the time, Lilly viewed the end of her professional partnership with Scotty as a small sacrifice for their personal one, and, well…it had been worth it. Lilly thoroughly enjoyed working with her new partner, Will Jeffries, and their pre-existing friendship had only grown stronger. Scotty and his new partner…well…Lilly smiled as she thought of him working with Kat Miller. They'd become friends, sure, but there was an added dimension to their partnership; one of almost a big sister-little brother dynamic that had made watching the two of them…entertaining, to say the least.

Lily smiled broadly as she turned to face Scotty, and his heart soared when he saw her. That thousand-watt smile…that was what he'd first noticed about Lil through his haze of scotch that night in Nashville. That smile was what had first started the unexpected, but not unwelcome, desire flooding through his veins, and what had ultimately proven to be his undoing. Upon returning to Philadelphia, he'd been shocked to discover that he'd fallen for her. He'd tried desperately to hide his feelings, but they'd rapidly grown far too strong to keep to himself, and even now, he still occasionally felt the need to pinch himself to make sure that this whole thing wasn't just some really long, incredibly realistic dream. He couldn't believe his luck, couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fact that, somehow, Lilly Rush had fallen in love with him, too. Oh, sure they'd hit a couple bumps in the road; what couple wouldn't? But, to his pleasant surprise, they'd worked through them, like adults…like people in love should. As he looked down at Lilly, taking in her blonde hair, stunning blue eyes, porcelain skin, and that heart-melting smile, Scotty realized, once again, how happy she made him.

With a contented sigh and a loving gaze, he handed Lilly a fresh cup of coffee, this one cardboard with a colorful logo splashed across the side and a plastic lid perched snugly on the top.

"Real coffee?" Lilly asked in surprise, taking the cup from him with deep gratitude. "I knew there was a reason I keep you around," she said teasingly. She took a sip, and her smile widened even more.

"Triple Americano, just like you like it," Scotty replied with a lopsided grin. "Figured I prob'ly owed you one after I kept you up so late last night."

Lilly blushed slightly, but couldn't hide her smile, and she knew without even looking that Nick Vera, sitting to her right, wouldn't let that comment slide without adding one of his own.

"Doin' what?" Vera asked knowingly, his trademark smirk painted across his face as he glanced up at Scotty.

"Shut it, Nick," Miller ordered, glaring over at him from where she sat. "Some of us don't wanna know details."

"I sure could stomach all this cheeriness better if I weren't stuck drinkin'…_this,_" Jeffries complained with mock severity, staring into his coffee mug with disgust.

"Don't worry, I brought enough for everyone," Scotty replied, turning away from Lilly and distributing the cups.

"Caramel macchiato," he announced, depositing a large coffee cup on Will's desk.

"Pay you back," Jeffries replied automatically.

"No need," Scotty answered cheerfully. "Coffee's on me."

"Well, all right," Jeffries said with a broad smile, a sense of brotherly affection washing over him as he raised the coffee cup to his lips.

"Grande mocha latte with skim milk, extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles," Scotty continued, handing a cup to Miller. His new partner's particular preferences when it came to her coffee had thrown Scotty for a loop several times, but he was pretty sure he'd nailed it this morning.

"Nice job, Man Candy," Miller congratulated him. "You finally got it right."

Scotty couldn't help the cocky grin that crossed his face. "I always knew your coffee order," he gloated, "just liked gettin' it wrong on purpose to see the look on your face."

"Uh-huh," Kat answered him, her eyes twinkling with mischief despite the withering glare she was giving him.

"And last but not least… a cup of regular, boring-ass coffee for our purist over here," he finished, as Vera took the last coffee cup from him.

"Hey, thanks, man," Vera replied with a sense of surprised gratitude. He took a sip, finding the bitter brew the perfect complement to the donut he'd been munching on. He'd managed, yet again, to grab the last donut out of the box that morning, much to Kat's chagrin. He took another bite of the donut, tossing a triumphant glance in her direction, which was met, of course, by a dark glare from her. He chortled slightly, then turned his attention back to Scotty.

"Gotta say, I like this side of you, man," he remarked.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Scotty asked, arching a brow.

"Never bought us all coffee when you were single," Vera smirked.

"Yeah, well…I'm turnin' over a new leaf," Scotty replied with a shrug.

"Valens in love," Vera continued thoughtfully, as Scotty sat down at his desk, popped the lid off his own coffee cup, frowned into it for a moment, then fished a coffee stirrer out of the drawer in his desk where he kept a steady supply, having learned from years of experience that the people at the coffee place never seemed to be able to remember that the swirly was as essential to coffee as the steamed two-percent milk and the freshly ground nutmeg, and stirred his coffee, studying it intently.

"Obnoxious as hell, but he buys us coffee," Vera remarked, shrugging as he started to take another sip of coffee. "Guess it all evens out."

Scotty shot his colleague a brief glance of skeptical amusement before raising the coffee experimentally to his lips. He tasted it thoughtfully, then smiled with satisfaction and glanced up to see Lilly watching him, repressed laughter twinkling in her deep blue eyes. His high-maintenance coffee habit never ceased to amuse Lilly, and he knew it. Meeting her eyes with a wickedly lascivious glance, he took the stirrer out of the cup and stuck the end of it in his mouth, then toyed with it a little while grinning at his girlfriend mischievously.

Lilly supposed she would have gotten used to Scotty's brazen workplace flirting by now. It was never out-and-out inappropriate, but Scotty, ever the adrenaline junkie, insisted on toeing the line, much like he was doing now. But despite her vast experience, his smoldering gaze startled her so much that she dropped her pen, and it clattered to the floor. Vera glanced up, noticed what was happening, and suppressed a chuckle as Lilly bent down to retrieve the fallen pen.

As she started to raise her head, Lilly suddenly realized that she was staring at a worn pair of black Converse sneakers. Glancing up, she noticed that the sneakers were attached to a waifish young woman with a long, dirty blonde ponytail, with which her free hand fidgeted nervously, her pale green eyes glancing around the room uncertainly, and a plastic bag from Philadelphia Grace Hospital in her other hand.

"Are you guys …detectives?" the woman asked nervously.

"Yeah, Philly Homicide, in the flesh," Lilly answered with a smile. "Lilly Rush."

The woman extended her hand automatically.

"I'm Meredith Grey," she replied softly, shaking Lilly's hand and continuing her nervous perusal of the room, looking for all the world like someone who'd give absolutely anything to be anywhere else but where she was.

"You got somethin' on a murder?" Scotty asked, interrupting Meredith's reverie.

Meredith looked briefly startled, like she'd almost forgotten where she was, then smiled ruefully and let out a shaky sigh.

"My friend…Izzie Stevens…she died last year. Killed. Murdered…whatever," Meredith began haltingly, then took a deep breath, glanced around the room again, and continued. "They came around, asked some questions, but never really got anywhere…they said it was a robbery…but then this morning…George…he came back from the cemetery where he goes sometimes to see her. Izzie, I mean. At the…thing…or whatever. I don't go. I hate cemeteries. I see enough death as it is. It's…just part of the job…"

"What exactly do you do?" Vera asked, glancing up at Meredith suspiciously.

"I'm a surgeon. Well…surgical resident. At Philly Grace. And I haven't seen a lot of death…but enough. I almost died. Twice, actually. I got blown up, and then I drowned, and then Izzie…" she trailed off with a sigh.

Lilly tried hard to follow the young doctor's rambling. "So this friend of yours…Izzie…she was a surgeon, too?"

Meredith nodded, then got that faraway look in her green eyes again as she stared at the ceiling. Coming here…this was even harder than she'd thought it'd be, but she really didn't have a choice. Not if she had any hope of…

"You got somethin' for us in that bag?" Scotty asked.

Meredith glanced down at her hand as though she had forgotten she was holding anything. "Oh…yeah. This morning, when George came back…he had…" Tears slowly filled her eyes, and she wordlessly handed the bag to Lilly.

Peeking inside, Lilly discovered a stethoscope.

"Is this Izzie's stethoscope?" she asked, lifting it out of the bag and studying it carefully.

Meredith nodded. "They couldn't find it…you know…after…but it was on her grave this morning…George found it…and he goes every week…and it's never been there before…"

Lilly turned the stethoscope over in her hands, then gave it to Scotty, who noticed an inscription on the back. "IRS?" he asked, peering up at Meredith.

"Isobel Rose Stevens," Meredith supplied. "So…does this help?" she asked, shifting her weight nervously.

Lilly considered Meredith for a moment. "Well, it's more than they had last year. We'll look into it."

Meredith smiled with relief. "Thanks." She turned to go, then stopped and looked back at Lilly. She needed to say what she'd come to say.

"Izzie was…well, we were all…family. The interns, I mean. Cristina and George and Izzie and Alex...they were my family. My dad left, and my mom…well…she did the best she knew how…but….and then she died, right after my fake mommy…" she laughed nervously. "I'm rambling again. Derek says I do that a lot."

Lilly smiled sympathetically, finding herself suddenly able to relate to this waif of a surgeon. "Who's Derek?" she asked kindly.

Meredith smiled, the first spark of happiness Lilly had seen from her.

"My boyfriend," Meredith explained, her cheeks flushing slightly pink. "And he's been great through all this. But…ever since Izzie, things have been…weird…with the residents. We've all been sniping at each other…all the arguing, and the evil misery…"

Meredith trailed off, her voice suddenly thick and clogged with tears. She swallowed hard, then looked up at Lilly once more.

"My family's falling apart," she said plaintively, "and maybe…if we could put Izzie behind us…just maybe…I can get my family back."

Lilly was touched, and she considered the young surgeon carefully. A stethoscope wasn't much to go on, but the original detectives hadn't had it last year, and they'd definitely solved cases on less than that. And Meredith's plea about family, well…Meredith's real family sounded just as fractured as Lilly's, and as she glanced around the room, Lilly realized "family" would be a pretty accurate way to describe them, although she'd never really thought of them like that before. But she took in Vera, polishing off the last of that donut and smiling triumphantly at Miller, who had given up glaring and resorted to rolling her eyes and muttering something under her breath that started with "Fatass" and ended with "ass kicked," and Jeffries quietly sipping his coffee and studying Meredith Grey thoughtfully, Scotty, who was still pondering the stethoscope, and their boss, John Stillman, who sat in his office filling out some paperwork , Lilly realized how deeply unsettling it would be to have something like this happen to them. Startled, she realized she couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to one of the detectives, and the rest of the squad being hopelessly splintered as a result.

Lilly set her jaw with determination as the familiar thirst for justice and desire to give a family closure surged through her veins. She knew better than to make promises, though, so she fixed Meredith with a cool, professional gaze and gave her standard answer. "We'll take another look, see what comes up."

"Thanks," Meredith said again, with a slight, relieved smile, then turned around and left as quietly as she'd come.

Lilly watched Meredith leave, and as she returned her eyes to her desk, she noticed Scotty watching her with a mixture of love and admiration. She knew, without him even having to say anything, that he'd seen the look on her face, the one that said she was taking a case, and was going to solve it, come hell or high water. Meeting his eyes, she smiled slightly.

"Let's put this girl's family back together," she suggested, and he nodded in reply.

_Opening Credits_


	2. Much Too Much

**Chapter Two: Much Too Much**

Down in the warehouse, the five detectives and their boss had pulled Izzie Stevens' evidence boxes from their nesting places on the shelf and had begun to pore through their contents.

"Izzie Stevens, 27, found shot in the chest on the roof of Philadelphia Grace Hospital, September, 2006", Stillman announced, handing a file to Jeffries.

"Surgical resident at the hospital, just completed her one-year internship..." Jeffries read, flipping a page. "Originally looked like a robbery gone wrong; no prints, no murder weapon, wallet and stethoscope missing."

"Only guy they really talked to was a Dr. Alex Karev," Stillman added, glancing through notes from the original interviews. "Says he was her boyfriend for a while...couldn't pin it on him, though, and the job went cold after that."

Lilly glanced through another file. "Well, I can see why they talked to him," she mused. "Looks like the guy's got quite a temper."

The other detectives looked up with interest. "Keep going," Miller prodded.

"Says here he once punched out a patient's father in the ambulance bay," Lilly said, arching a brow as she handed the file to Scotty, who had pulled up a chair and sat in it backwards.

"A surgeon punchin' people out on hospital property?" Scotty replied with interest as he looked through the pages of notes. "Sounds like this guy's got some serious rage issues."

Miller, from her perch on the ladder they'd used to retrieve Izzie's evidence boxes, made a noise that sounded something like a cross between a cough and a snort, and said, "Oh, now, you're one to talk."

Scotty looked up and was surprised to find his colleagues all staring at him, for reasons that escaped him at that moment. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded with a frown.

Vera answered for them, chuckling as he did so. "You ain't exactly the poster boy for anger management, there, pal."

Scotty glared at his co-workers, but was saved from having to respond by a brief laugh from Lilly, who had mercifully turned her attention back to the case.

"Well, this is interesting," she said, as she glanced through the file. "Says here that Izzie put herself through medical school by modeling." Lilly handed a black-and-white photograph to Miller.

"Modeling, huh?" Miller repeated as she took a look at the photo. "Sounds like quite a resourceful gal."

"Modeling? Lemme see that," Vera said, grabbing the photo out of Kat's hands. "Son of a bitch," he breathed in recognition. "That's…that's Bethany Whisper!" A look of grim determination crossed his face, as he realized that this case had just gotten personal.

"Who?" Miller demanded, arching a brow at Vera, which caused him to jump slightly.

"Bethany Whisper?" Scotty repeated with a frown, taking the photo from Vera and glancing at it. The name sounded slightly familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. "Oh, yeah...Bethany Whisper..." he continued, a faintly leering smile of remembrance crossing his features as he perused the photo and took in the curvy blonde clad in a black negligee.

It was Lilly's turn to glance at the men, specifically Scotty, with icy suspicion. "Who the hell is Bethany Whisper?" she demanded.

"Lingerie model," Vera replied, unable to help the smirk that slowly spread its way over the lower half of his face. "Blonde. _Hot_."

"You know this…Bethany Whisper, too, Scotty?" Lilly asked, fixing him with the look she gave suspects in the interrogation room.

Oh, God. This was the last question Scotty wanted to answer. He glanced at Lilly to find her giving him that all-too-familiar Ice Queen stare. After four years of being her partner and several months of dating her, he was well-versed in the icy looks she gave him, but, he realized with chagrin, he wasn't any more adept at dealing with them now than he had been when they first met. That woman could squeeze blood from a turnip with just one dagger stare, he thought ruefully, as he realized she was still glaring at him, and he knew from experience that she wouldn't let up until he gave her a straight answer. He looked around briefly at the other detectives, all of whom were watching his drama with Lilly unfold with both curiosity and amusement, and he knew in a flash that he wouldn't be getting any help from them.

With a sigh, Scotty looked back at his girlfriend with what he hoped was a mixture of innocence and genuine repentance.

"She was a hot thing several years ago. A long, long, _long_ time ago," he emphasized, desperately trying to dig his way out of the hole he and Vera had just dug for themselves. Vera, for his part, was alternately smirking at him and leering at the photo, endlessly amused at the trouble Scotty was in. He didn't notice the brief, yet deadly, glare Miller shot him.

Lilly studied Scotty for a moment longer, trying to determine how attracted he still was to this Bethany Whisper girl of theirs. Oh, he'd tried to hide it, but she'd seen that brief lusty glance cross his features, and she was slightly startled at the jealousy that rose up within her. _Get real, Rush, _she ordered herself. _She's not a lingerie model anymore, she's your murder victim. Get a grip._

"Well, I guess if she somehow became a surgeon, she wouldn't have had much time for modeling recently," she said, relenting. "And if you say it was a long, long, long time ago, well…" she trailed off with a slight smile, and Scotty couldn't help but sigh with relief. He'd dodged a bullet, and he knew it.

"Guess Valens has had a thing for blondes longer than we thought," Vera chortled, to the appreciative chuckles of most of his colleagues.

Stillman cleared his throat, jerking his detectives back to the matter at hand. "Will, why don't you and Lil go talk track down Dr. Karev again?" he suggested. "Nicky, go talk to CSU, see if they've gotten any prints off the stethoscope, and Scotty, you take Miller and go talk to Izzie's roommates, see if anybody remembers anything."

"Will do, Boss," Lilly replied, as the detectives started to scatter. "Looks like they left a few stones unturned."

* * *

Upon reaching the hospital's surgical floor, Lilly spied the young doctor almost instantly, leaning against the desk at the nurses' station and filling out a form. "Dr. Alex Karev?" she asked as she and Jeffries approached.

"The family waiting room is down the hall to your left," he answered, without looking up. "Can't give out any information on patients, I'm sorry."

"Detectives Rush and Jeffries, Philadelphia Homicide," Lilly replied, coolly flashing her badge, and Alex finally looked up.

After regarding them briefly, he rolled his eyes and groaned. "God, not this again."

"We got some questions for you, Doc," Jeffries answered coolly.

Alex glared at them. "Look, you guys came around last year, I did the song and dance, nothin' stuck then, so what's different now? Why the hell are you guys back? Can't find any other innocent people to torture?"

Lilly, accustomed to verbal tirades by suspects, remained calm and unruffled. "We're taking another look at the Izzie Stevens case," she informed him.

Alex looked from one detective to the other and sighed. "I gotta be in the OR in ten minutes or Bailey'll kick my ass. Anything I can do to prove my innocence in those ten minutes?"

Jeffries fixed Alex with a cool gaze and said, "Well, you can start by telling us about your relationship with Izzie Stevens."

Alex rolled his eyes in exasperation as he clicked his pen closed and clipped it in the breast pocket of his scrubs. "Okay, yeah, me and Izzie had a thing, fine, whatever. It ended. Doesn't mean I killed her."

"Well, we're interested in precisely how it ended, Alex," Lilly pressed.

Alex glared at them again, then sighed once more, this time in defeat. "Fine. Look. I cheated on her, okay? She didn't do anything to me. I cheated on her in the on-call room with a nurse."

Lilly and Jeffries glanced at one another. The cheating hadn't been mentioned in the file.

Turning her attention back to the young resident, Lilly glared at Alex coolly. "Now, I can't speak for Izzie, but I know if I walk in on my boyfriend sleeping with some tramp at work, no way am I taking that lying down," she insisted. "You sure she didn't confront you later?"

Alex started to protest, but Jeffries continued where Lilly had left off. "Maybe she had some choice words for you, and you took exception to them."

"One thing led to another…" Lilly began.

"…and the next thing you know, she's dead, and you're panicked," Jeffries added.

"Happens all the time," Lilly finished, her tone falsely reassuring.

"Look, that's not what happened, okay?" Alex interjected angrily. "Izzie forgave me!"

"Forgave you?" Lilly repeated in disbelief. "When?"

"Not too long after that," Alex answered, the anger in his eyes softening somewhat. "It was the day we had the Code Black."

"Code Black?" Jeffries echoed.

Alex chuckled slightly. "Yeah, some idiot World War II re-enactor ended up with live ammunition in his gut, and put the whole hospital in danger."

Lilly recalled that morning, when Meredith had mentioned getting blown up, and realized that she hadn't been talking metaphors: Meredith Grey had somehow survived a bomb in a body cavity.

"With all that chaos, how do you know Izzie forgave you?" Lilly asked.

"Oh," Alex began, his eyes sparkling with both pride and embarrassment, "I know." Lilly and Jeffries exchanged a curious glance as Alex began his tale.

_(Music: "Kaboom!" by Ursula 1000)_

_Alex stood in the on-call room stirring a cup of coffee. What a crazy-ass day. Jackass has a bomb in his gut, his idiot wife keeps shrieking hysterically, and the whole hospital's in lockdown, all the while their resident, Miranda Bailey, was giving birth at that very moment, except her husband had been in a car accident on the way to see her…_

_His reverie was interrupted by purposeful footsteps striding down the hall and the clattering of the venetian blinds against the window as the door was shoved open. He was somewhat surprised to see Izzie standing there. She'd barely spoken to him since catching him in bed with that red-haired nurse Olivia._

"_Alex," she said urgently._

"_Craziness," he remarked, returning his attention to his cup of coffee. "Dude, it's like the apocalypse."_

"_Alex," Izzie repeated, but he was only dimly aware that she was even speaking to him. _

"_It's true; I mean, look around you," he continued, oblivious to the blonde's growing impatience. "Half the people who're supposed to be saving lives have fled the building to save themselves," he explained as he emptied a packet of sugar into his coffee. "Bailey's husband almost died comin' to see his kid get born, the Annoying Twins are down on the OR floor with a guy who literally might explode in their faces. It's a morgue waitin' to happen here. I'm just sayin' to get while the gettin's good, 'cause there might not be tomorrow--"_

"_Alex!" Izzie shouted._

"_What?" he asked cynically, sure she was about to tell him of some other crisis that required his immediate attention, but was startled to see the twin sparks of anger and…something else…blazing in her brown eyes. _

_The next thing he knew, they were in the linen closet, and Izzie's luscious curves were pressed between him and the door as they kissed feverishly. He had no idea what the hell was going on, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. _

_Izzie broke the kiss then, leaving Alex stunned and dizzy. "Take off your pants," she ordered breathlessly._

_What the hell? "Izzie," he laughed. "What're you doin'?"_

_Her gaze never left his eyes as she started to remove her shoes. "I'm being a doer," she explained, "getting while the getting's good. Now take off your pants."_

_Alex had no freakin' idea what the hell she was doing, and his libido was screaming at him to just shut up and enjoy, but his common sense prevailed, at least momentarily. _

"_You realize when I said the apocalypse, I meant it metaphorically, not literally…" he began, but his train of thought was derailed by the fact that Izzie Stevens, Bethany Whisper herself, was stripping off her scrub top, revealing an expanse of creamy skin and a simple, yet elegant, brown satin bra. He couldn't stop staring. She looked absolutely delicious._

"_Alex," she snapped, as she removed the clip from her hair and tossed her long golden waves down over her shoulders. At that point, she could have been reciting the Hippocratic Oath in Swahili, and Alex wouldn't have cared. Was she serious? Was she really forgiving him? _

_Oblivious to his inner questioning, Izzie continued urgently. "I haven't had sex in eight months and twelve days," she declared, as she threw her top the floor. "I'm horny, I'm half-naked, and I'm saying yes. Do you wanna stand there and talk metaphors, or do you wanna literally…take off…your pants?" she asked him, her last words punctuated by insistent gestures with her hand._

_Alex stood there speechless for a moment, pondering in his mind what had to be the most ridiculously easy question anyone had ever asked him. Sensing his decision, Izzie met his eyes and nodded, and Alex's pants were off faster than he could blink. Satisfied, Izzie turned her back and unhooked her bra, and they were soon plunged into an ocean of desperate ecstasy._

"So, yeah…she forgave me," Alex explained, his eyes twinkling with the slightest note of triumph.

"I'll say she did," Jeffries echoed, simultaneously amused and uncomfortable.

"But you two weren't together when Izzie died," Lilly pressed. "How'd it end the second time around?"

Alex blinked in surprise. "Just…drifted apart, I guess," he answered casually. "It was mutual…"

He was saved from having to answer further by the insistent electronic chirp of his pager. He pulled it from his belt, checked it, and glanced up at the detectives with a cocky grin.

"Gotta go. It's a 911," he declared, almost patronizingly. Without waiting for a reply, he took off down the hall at a run.

"Sex on hospital property," Jeffries mused, as he and Lilly turned to go in the opposite direction. "Just when you think you've seen it all…"

Lilly chuckled. "What I can't get over is how much that guy looks like my old partner," she remarked.

"Karev doesn't look a thing like Scotty," Jeffries remarked teasingly, casting a sly glance in Lilly's direction. "Except for that 'I know everything' grin of his."

Lilly glared at him briefly. "My…_other _old partner," she amended.

"Lassing?" Jeffries recalled, then paused to reconsider what the other man looked like. "Yeah, I can definitely see a resemblance."

* * *

Meanwhile, Kat and Scotty headed toward an on-call room, where they were told George O'Malley was catching a nap between surgeries. As they went down the hallway, Miller couldn't help but notice her partner pale noticeably and even give a slight shudder.

"What the hell's the matter with you? Hospitals give you the willies?" she asked half-jokingly.

Scotty glanced over at her, trying to conceal his panic. He really, really, really hated hospitals…well, medical care in general, actually, but damned if he'd allow Kat to see that. By the twinkle in her dark eyes, though, he knew it was too late.

"Just ain't too fond of 'em, I guess," he responded lightly.

Miller laughed slightly. "Nine years ago, I woulda given my right arm for a hospital."

"Yeah?" Scotty asked, his brows arched with interest.

Kat glanced over at him. "You try pushin' a watermelon outta your body in the backseat of a taxi while tryin' to shout instructions on how to get to the hospital to a cab driver who just got off the boat yesterday and doesn't speak a word of English," she retorted.

Scotty shuddered again and went even paler, and his partner laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry, Man Candy, did I offend your delicate sensibilities?"

Scotty was saved from having to answer by realizing that they'd arrived at the on-call room. A red-haired nurse walked past, and they could see that her name tag read "Olivia." With a small degree of amusement, Scotty noted the similarity to Lilly's cat in both the nurse's name and hair color, then stopped her.

"Excuse me, Nurse…have you seen Dr. O'Malley?" he asked her.

"He's in there," she said, gesturing with her thumb. "Just…listen at the door before you knock," she suggested, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Scotty asked.

"If it's quiet, whoever's in there's sleeping. If not…someone's having sex," Olivia grinned, then headed off down the hallway.

Kat looked around in disgust. "This is one nasty-ass hospital," she commented, tossing a glance in Scotty's direction for confirmation. He didn't respond, and when she saw the slightly dreamy look in his eyes, she knew without even asking that his thoughts had wandered off the job momentarily.

"Mind outta the gutter, Valens," she ordered, and without knocking, pushed open the door to the on-call room.

Inside, a curly-haired doctor in blue scrubs was adding a packet of creamer to his coffee. Scotty could tell, by sniffing the air quizzically, that their coffee was marginally better than theirs, but only marginally.

"Can I help you?" George asked kindly, glancing up at his visitors.

"George O'Malley?" Kat asked, flashing her badge. "Detectives Miller, Valens, Philly PD. We're here to ask you a few questions about Izzie Stevens."

George smiled sadly. "Yeah…Meredith said you might be coming by." He motioned for them to have a seat on the only available surface, which happened to be the bottom bunk in the on-call room. Kat glanced at it and recoiled in disgust, prompting Scotty to toss her a triumphant glance as he sat down on the bed, thoroughly enjoying his partner's discomfort.

Kat squared her shoulders and began the interview. "Heard you found Izzie's stethoscope this morning," she said.

"Yeah," George replied, taking a sip of his coffee. "I—I go all the time, y'know…Iz was my best friend…but that stethoscope was just there this morning, lying on the grave, and I dunno how it got there."

"Did you see anyone near the grave, or anyone else at the cemetery?" Scotty asked, pen in hand.

George shook his head. "Nope…I was there before sunrise. Had rounds, y'know," he said with a smile, "and there aren't too many other people there at that hour."

"Can you think of anyone who might've wanted to hurt Izzie?" Miller asked him softly.

George thought for a moment, started to say something, then shook his head. It was only the briefest of hesitations, but both detectives noticed, and Scotty pounced.

"Y'know, whatever it is, it can only help, even if you don't think it's important," he prodded.

George sighed reluctantly. "It's just…you hate to think somebody you know could do somethin' like this…"

"But?" Kat prompted.

George sighed again. "What's Meredith told you about her boyfriend?" he asked them.

Kat and Scotty exchanged a glance. "Only his name…Derek," Miller answered.

"Well…Derek…." George began. "Is Dr. Derek Shepherd…Chief of Neurosurgery…but everyone around here calls him McDreamy."

"McDreamy?" Kat repeated, arching a brow.

"Yeah," George replied, with just a touch of bitterness. "Perfect hair, perfect body, perfect life," he recited.

"What makes you think he might've had somethin' to do with Izzie?" Scotty asked.

George took another sip of coffee, then explained. "Derek is Meredith's boss. They didn't want that to get out, so they kept their relationship a secret for a while. But…secrets have a way of being found out...and Dr. Shepherd had an even bigger secret he was keeping…"

_(Music: "Whatever Gets You Through Today" by The Radio)_

_Derek Shepherd sat in a chair in the waiting room, having changed out of his surgical scrubs to a sweater over a collared shirt, and idly flipped through a magazine, his laptop perched on the table in front of him. Soon afterwards, Meredith Grey sidled up to him, coat in one hand, tote bag in the other, a flirtatious smile playing at the corners of her lips. _

"_Long day," Derek said as he met Meredith's eyes. It was more of a statement than a question._

"_Yeah," Meredith agreed, the exhaustion evident in her voice._

_Derek bent down to put the magazine away. "Somewhere, there is a steak with your name on it, and maybe a bottle of wine," he declared seductively as he flipped his laptop closed and slipped it into his briefcase._

_Meredith's smile broadened. "This is why I keep you around."_

_Derek grinned briefly, with a flash of dimples, before looking up at Meredith, then sobered. Looking up at her, he said softly, "So we need to talk."_

"_Wine first, talk later," she answered flatly, glancing at the floor._

_Derek stooped to retrieve his belongings, then stood up, giving Meredith a lopsided grin and a sultry glance. "Are you, uh, trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?" he asked suggestively as he grabbed his jacket._

_Meredith laughed, and grinned at him. 'I think I like this rules thing," she said, as she shrugged into her own jacket. _

"_Me too," he agreed, as he put on his coat, then reached over to help her with hers. He straightened her lapels as she grabbed her long, dirty-blonde hair and pulled it out from underneath the tan coat, and gazed at her happily, noting with satisfaction that the love he knew shone from his eyes was also reflected from Meredith's. _

_So entranced were they that they didn't notice the black-clad redhead standing at the reception desk, a determined look in her blue eyes. Not, that is, until Derek leaned down to retrieve his briefcase. As he straightened, the smile froze, and all the color drained from his face as he stared at the redhead in disbelief. Their eyes met, and then she strode toward them, purposefully, with a deliberate sway in her hips, her eyes blazing._

_Derek had only the briefest of instants. He reached out, placed a hand on Meredith's shoulder, and, seeming to scramble for adequate words, managed, "Meredith, I am so sorry." Confusion swimming in her green eyes, Meredith could only stare._

_Derek turned his gaze to the right, seemed to steel himself for what was coming, as the redhead reached the spot where they were standing, shifting her weight and placing a hand on her hip. Her eyes locked on Derek's._

"_Addison," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, his indigo eyes sparking with anger. "What are you doing here?"_

_Addison didn't flinch, just kept her eyes locked on Derek's, as she answered, "Well, you would know if you bothered to return any one of my phone calls."_

_Meredith stood there, mouth slightly agape, and suddenly, Addison seemed to notice her. "Hi," she said cheerfully. "I'm Addison Shepherd." She extended a hand to the younger woman._

_Meredith shook her hand, almost automatically, still staring in disbelief and confusion. "Shepherd?" she parroted breathily._

_Indicating Meredith with a freshly manicured hand, Addison concluded, "And you must be…the woman who's been screwing my husband."_

"McDreamy was married?" Kat repeated in disbelief.

"Pretty big secret," Scotty commented, and George nodded in agreement.

"I cannot _believe _he'd do that to Meredith," he fumed protectively.

"So what's any of this got to do with Izzie?" Scotty asked.

"Izzie found out about Meredith and Derek one morning when we saw him leaving the house," George began, "and a few days later, Addison shows up. And Izzie…well…she was kinda…a little nosy…and…we think she mighta told Chief Webber. 'Cause the Chief was the one who called Addison—Dr. Shepherd--Dr Mongtomery-Shepherd…well…guess it's just Montgomery now…" he trailed off in a thicket of reluctant confusion when the pager at his belt chirped insistently.

Checking it, he glanced up apologetically. "I gotta run," he said, and the detectives nodded, then followed him out.

"The married Head of Neurosurgery screwin' an intern? I can see why he wouldn't want that gettin' out," Miller mused.

"Secret relationships ain't always the easiest," Scotty said with a rueful grin.

Miller rolled her eyes. "Sometimes, I wish yours had _stayed _a secret," she retorted, and Scotty just grinned all the more.


	3. Don't Stand So Close To Me

**Chapter Three: Don't Stand So Close To Me**

"So Meredith Grey, an intern, is foolin' around with her boss?" Stillman asked, arching his brows in surprise as he sipped his coffee. "Her _married _boss?"

"Looks that way, Boss," Miller replied.

"Anybody else know about this fling?" Stillman asked.

"Well, they kept it a secret for a while," Scotty answered uncomfortably, "but…it kinda got out."

"As secrets do," Stillman commented drily, glancing briefly in Scotty's direction before turning his attention back to Miller. "We got any leads on the wife?"

"Addison Montgomery…OB/GYN, neonatologist, a whole handful of other specialties. She's workin' in LA now," Miller replied, "but Vera just got off the phone with her, and she says Chief Webber called her from New York to come do some…" she trailed off as she tried to decipher Vera's handwriting and cursed the smear of donut frosting that obscured part of his notes. "…twin-twin transfusion thing…whatever the hell that is," she said with a wry grin.

"Sounds like it was work-related," Stillman commented, as they made their way through the squad room to where Lilly and Jeffries sat discussing their interview.

"But we're thinkin' maybe it kinda wasn't," Scotty remarked, perching on the edge of Lilly's desk. "If the Chief knew about it, no way does he not tell Addison. Question is: how'd the Chief find out?"

"George O'Malley says Izzie found out about the affair," Miller began, consulting her notes.

"Wonder if Izzie mighta stuck her nose where it didn't belong. Think she mighta told the Chief?" Scotty asked.

"I wouldn't put it past her," Lilly chimed in. "Sounds like Izzie Stevens had a habit of getting a little bit too involved with other people's business. If she told the Chief about an illicit relationship between Shepherd and Grey…"

"That would give McDreamy…a McMotive," Miller finished triumphantly. The others just stared at her.

"What?" she asked, glancing around.

Jeffries smiled wryly. "We're…not gonna do that here," he declared softly.

Miller rolled her eyes, and Stillman seemed to come to a decision. "Let's have a chat with the secret lovers," he suggested. "Maybe they won't be so protective of their secrets now."

* * *

Upon reaching the hospital, Vera opened the door for Lilly, and she glanced at him in surprise as she walked through it, unaccustomed to a display of gentlemanliness from Nick Vera. Scotty, sure. Scotty had always opened doors for her. It was something she'd always noticed about him; never pushy, never insistent…just…polite. Normally, Lilly Rush hated having doors opened for her, yet when Scotty did it, it never seemed insulting. But to have Vera do it…Lilly wasn't insulted, just surprised.

In response to the questioning look he got from his blonde colleague, Vera just smirked slightly and shrugged.

They hadn't wandered the halls of the hospital for long when they spotted a slight-framed doctor with a messy, dishwater blonde ponytail. When the detectives greeted her, she flashed them a slightly relieved smile. "Any luck with the case?" she asked them casually.

"We…got a couple leads," Vera answered.

"Is there someplace we can talk?" Lilly asked, and a flicker of concern crossed Meredith's face. She nervously beckoned them into an exam room, shut the door behind her, and stood nervously next to it, hugging her clipboard to her chest and glancing at them uncertainly, like she might bolt any second. Lilly recognized that look.

"Meredith, we just have some questions," she began gently.

"Yeah, questions like…where were you the night of the murder?" Vera asked, and Lilly shot him a brief glare.

Meredith's pale green eyes widened in shock. "Me?" she squeaked. "You think I killed Izzie? Why? Why would I kill Izzie?" she asked, a touch of anger coloring her breathy voice.

"'Maybe 'cause she's lousy at keepin' secrets," Vera guessed.

"Secrets? What kind of secrets? I don't have any secrets," Meredith protested.

"But you did," Lilly replied, softly but firmly. "You had a big secret."

Meredith stared at them blankly, her mouth working to form words, but none would come out.

"You and boss-man?" Vera asked. "Ring any bells?"

When Meredith continued gaping at them cluelessly, Lilly continued. "Your boyfriend? Derek? An intern sleeping with her married boss? That's a secret worth keeping, and we know Izzie knew about it."

Meredith sighed. "That…wasn't a secret for very long," she remarked.

"Yeah, we know," Vera replied. "We figured if Addison Montgomery heard about it all the way back in New York, then you guys musta been pretty lousy secret-keepers."

Lilly approached Meredith slowly, her eyes never leaving Meredith's gaze. "Now, we know Izzie knew, and we know that Addison found out about you and Derek from Chief Webber. The question is, how did Chief Webber know?"

"'Cause we think Izzie mighta blabbed to him," Vera added.

"Giving you motive for murder one," Lilly finished.

"No," Meredith protested, nervously shoving a lock of hair behind her ear. "Izzie didn't--well, she knew. But she didn't tell the Chief."

"How do you know that?" Lilly asked.

Meredith sighed again and looked down at the floor. "Because he saw it with his own eyes."

_Music: Grey's Anatomy, original underscoring_

_Chief Webber lay recovering in a private room, after the special super-secret silent sunset surgery to remove a tumor that had been pressing against his optic nerve. Meanwhile, Meredith spoke grudgingly into the phone with the people at the nursing home for what seemed like the seventeenth time that day._

"_I know, but something came up, an important surgery, and I couldn't," she insisted softly._

"_I'm just sorry you couldn't be there for your mother," Ms. Henry replied, a touch of reproach in her voice._

"_Ms. Henry," Meredith said, a little irritated at the guilt trip these people insisted on laying on her, "if my mother were lucid, she would understand. She's a surgeon. She's done this countless times." More times than she could ever even begin to count, Meredith thought wryly._

"_And besides, she doesn't even know who I am anyway, so…" she trailed off._

"_Today, she did," Ms. Henry replied softly._

"_What?" Meredith replied in disbelief._

"_Your mother's been asking when her daughter Meredith gets off from work," Ms. Henry elaborated._

_Crap. Meredith froze, unable to reply, and then jumped when she sensed someone touch her arm. Both startled and grateful for the interruption, she flipped her phone closed and turned to see Derek standing behind her. "Hey," he said quietly._

_She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare. "Hey," she greeted him softly._

_He glanced into her eyes briefly, then down at the phone. "Lotta secret phone calls today," he commented._

_Oh, you're one to talk, Meredith thought. You've had a lot of secret phone calls today, yourself. But something told her that maybe, just maybe…she could trust Derek with her secret. Her big, huge, horrible secret that she'd never, ever dared even breathe a word of to anyone. Could she trust Derek? With her secret? That secret?_

"_Yeah, it's my mother," she answered quietly. Glancing up at Derek, she saw him still consulting his notes, not responding in any way. Emboldened by his lack of prying curiosity, she took a deep breath and decided to spill the truth._

"_She isn't traveling, she isn't writing a book. She isn't anything." At this, Derek looked up, and she read the surprise in his blue eyes. The great Ellis Grey being described as not being anything? She knew how shocking that was to her surgeon boyfriend. Ellis Grey was a surgical legend. _

"_I've been lying to everyone," Meredith continued. _

_Derek's brow creased with concern. "Why?" he asked, mystified._

"_She has Alzheimer's," Meredith replied, and Derek's mystified frown turned to one of concern and compassion._

"_How advanced?" he asked, instantly the neurosurgeon._

"_Very," Meredith answered. "She's in a home, and I'm the only one who even knows she's sick. I just don't know what to do anymore, y'know?"_

_Derek shook his head slightly, his eyes filled with sympathy and sadness, and he gently brushed a wayward strand of hair away from her face. As she looked up at him, he softly caressed her cheek with his thumb, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head._

_A while later, Meredith nervously entered Chief Webber's room to check on him. She never felt like an intruder when checking on patients, but this wasn't just any patient. This was Chief Webber. _

"_Meredith," he began, and if she wasn't mistaken, she could almost catch a warning note in his tone._

_At his next words, her worst fears were confirmed. _

"_He's an attending," Webber continued. "You're an intern."_

"_You saw us?" Meredith asked incredulously, embarrassment and panic coursing through her body, but then the doctor in her took over. If Chief Webber had seen them, that meant the surgery had been a success. _

_She crossed the room, her eyes fixed on her boss. "You can see," she breathed in amazement, then whipped out her penlight and examined her patient's pupils. Webber, however, wouldn't let her change the subject, much to her chagrin._

"_I'm gonna tell you what your mother would say if she were here," Webber began. "You're making a mistake. A big one."_

_Meredith, having finished her examination, raised herself up and looked him square in the eyes. "And I would tell my mother it's not a mistake," she said firmly, with a slight smile._

"So the Chief saw you two makin' out in the hallway," Vera concluded.

Meredith glared at him slightly. "We weren't…making out. He was comforting me."

Lilly looked over at Meredith in sympathy. Her mother had Alzheimer's, and Meredith was the only one available to take care of her. Lilly knew what that was like…to an extent, anyway. Alzheimer's, alcoholism…each had its blessings and its curses, and Lilly knew in a flash how difficult Meredith's life had been.

"What were Derek's secret phone calls about?" Lilly asked softly. "Did he ever shine any light on that?"

Meredith chuckled bitterly. "Well, he didn't…but a couple hours later, Addison showed up. So…yeah, I guess you could say he did."

Lilly and Vera exchanged a glance. "If Derek's secret phone calls had been about Addison," Lilly began, the wheels in her head turning rapidly, "then she'd been trying to call him all day. And no way would Chief Webber have time to call Addison from the recovery room and get her here from New York in under two hours, in rush hour traffic. He had to have called her before that."

"Besides," Meredith continued, her voice slightly triumphant as she pulled her lab coat more closely around her thin frame. "I was in OR Two the night of the murder. Just ask Bailey."

"We will," Vera replied, clicking his pen closed.

"We'll let you know what else we find out," Lilly answered, as Meredith opened the door for them. Lilly brushed past, admittedly a bit relieved that it seemed Meredith hadn't killed her friend. Their eyes met briefly, though, and Lilly could tell by peering into their green depths that Meredith Grey was hiding…something…Lilly just couldn't tell what. The blonde doctor darted her gaze elsewhere before Lilly could ascertain the secret, but she knew she couldn't let Meredith off the hook quite yet.

"She may not be our doer," Lilly remarked as she and Vera headed down the hallway. "But I think she knows who is."

* * *

Meanwhile, Scotty and Kat stood in Derek Shepherd's office, a small room with dingy carpet and shelves cluttered with medical journals, old textbooks, and piles of papers. Scotty noticed a few photos lining the shelves, including one of Derek surrounded by four attractive, dark-haired women who all bore a striking resemblance to him, assorted men, and a bevy of small children. _Sisters, _Scotty instantly surmised. _Poor bastard's got four sisters. _Moving onto another photo, he recognized Meredith Grey's dimpled smile. She and Derek had their arms around each other and were grinning broadly as Niagara Falls thundered in the background.

"So…you and Meredith…you been together awhile, now," Scotty began, replacing the photo and turning to face the neurosurgeon.

"Yes," Derek answered, defensiveness already coloring his tone. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against his desk.

"How'd that get started, anyway?" Kat asked.

Derek raked a hand through his dark, wavy hair, and chuckled at the memory. "Drunken one night stand. She was just a girl in a bar, I was just a guy…I had no idea I'd ever see her again, let alone that she'd be my intern."

"Somethin' like that, you sure as hell don't want gettin' out at work," Scotty remarked, and Derek could hear the suspicion in the detective's voice. "Why not just break it off?"

Derek's blue eyes began to shoot sparks in Scotty's direction. "Break it off?" he repeated incredulously. "You ever met a woman who was just so…amazing…so incredible, that you'd do anything to see her again?"

Scotty's glare softened somewhat, and he knew without even looking in Miller's direction that his partner was rolling her eyes.

"This ain't about me, Doc," Scotty replied, and he could sense the surprised relief from Miller. "This is about you and Meredith, and the fact that you're married and bangin' your intern ain't exactly somethin' you want the whole hospital knowin' about."

Derek started to protest, but Miller cut him off.

"We know Izzie Stevens knew about you and Meredith," she interjected softly. "She saw you leaving the house early one morning."

Derek nodded and sighed, and Scotty continued. "So…you know that Izzie Stevens knows, and Izzie's got a big mouth. She's a gossip to the core. And you got a big secret you don't want gettin' out. You're married, you're her boss, she's your intern…"

Derek glared menacingly at Scotty. "I don't like what you're suggesting, Detective," he said, his voice a low, threatening growl.

Scotty wasn't intimidated by this egomaniac of a doctor, and returned Derek's glare with a fiery one of his own. "Hell, I don't like what I'm suggestin', either, but that ain't gonna stop me from suggestin' it," he retorted, the muscle in his cheek beginning to twitch.

The doctor and the detective stood there, their faces only a few inches apart, jaws clenched and eyes shooting sparks. Kat Miller glanced from one to the other, rolled her eyes with a sigh, and took over the conversation.

"Look, Dr. Shepherd, we know that your secret got out. We know Chief Webber found out about you and Meredith. Now, we think maybe Izzie told him, and that makes us think you or Meredith, either one, might have a reason to kill her," she explained softly, but firmly.

Derek's angry glare turned even darker as he fixed it on Kat, but she didn't even blink as she stared him down.

"Are you calling my girlfriend a liar?" Derek asked incredulously.

"You callin' my _partner_ a liar?" Scotty retorted, stepping protectively between Miller and Derek, and the two glowered at each other once more.

Kat rolled her eyes again. These two Neanderthals needed to dial down the testosterone, and fast.

"Dr. Shepherd, can you think of any other way Chief Webber would have found out about your affair with Meredith?" she asked, stepping out from behind Scotty, drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing Derek with a no-nonsense stare of her own. Scotty glanced over at her in surprise, then turned back to staring fiercely at Derek.

Derek's glare softened a bit as he stood there, arms folded across his chest, and searched his memory. Suddenly, one particular night flashed into his mind.

"Bailey," he replied instantly. "Miranda Bailey."

"And who's Miranda Bailey?" Kat asked, pen at the ready.

"Meredith's resident at the time," Derek answered. "A real battle-ax. She's just a resident, but she's got this entire hospital under her thumb."

Kat glanced up with interest. "So how did Bailey find out about you and Meredith?"

Derek sighed, and his cheeks flushed slightly. Scotty felt a secret thrill at the doctor's discomfort as he launched into his tale.

"Meredith had this…party…at her house that night," he began, running his fingers through his hair once more.

_Music: Ivy, "Edge of the Ocean"_

_Derek pulled his Lexus up to the curb outside Meredith's house. It certainly wasn't every day that a woman blew him off for what basically amounted to a college party, and he wasn't about to let her off the hook. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was just something about Meredith Grey that made her dominate his every thought, appear in his dreams each night. When he was around her, it was sheer chaos. She drove him absolutely crazy and made it impossible for him to feel normal. He'd never experienced anything like it, but it was hopelessly addictive._

_Climbing out of his car, Derek noticed some guests still arriving, and then a slender, familiar figure on the porch caught his attention. She had on this beautiful lavender sweater that accentuated her gentle curves, a mostly-empty bottle of tequila in her hand, and a dreamy smile on her face. He casually leaned against his car and watched her in silence for a few minutes as she danced drunkenly to music only she could hear, and with a start, Derek Shepherd realized that…he was falling in love with Meredith Grey. That somehow, through all the mess that was his life, through all the hardship…he'd been drowning, he realized…and she'd saved him._

_Meredith kept dancing and chugging tequila, and after a moment, Derek broke the silence. "Y'know, in some states, you could get arrested for that," he remarked._

_She looked up, met his eyes for a moment, then slowly began to walk toward him. He smiled and met her halfway._

_Meredith smiled drunkenly up at him, biting her lower lip the way she usually did when he was around, a habit that he found so maddeningly adorable. But he couldn't let her off the hook. Not yet._

"_So you blew me off for a bottle of tequila," he surmised. "Tequila's no good for you. Doesn't call, doesn't write…it's not nearly as much fun to wake up to," he finished, glancing up at her seductively as he remembered waking up naked on her living room floor after that first night, catching a glimpse of her, and knowing instinctively that his life was forever changed. _

_Meredith didn't respond with words, she merely smiled broadly at him, tugged at the lapel of his coat, and pulled him in for a tequila-soaked kiss. The smell of the liquor on her breath reminded him of their first night, and he pulled her closer, feeling every nerve in his body responding to her touch._

_They pulled apart after a moment, mindful that they were still in front of Meredith's house, in clear view of pretty much the whole damn hospital, and she finally spoke._

"_Take me for a ride, Derek," she ordered softly with a grin, and Derek chuckled, his own smile broadening, as he wrapped his arm around her and led her toward his car._

_The sex had been amazing, even though they were in his car. Derek hadn't had sex in a car since he was a teenager, but Meredith brought out a wildness in him he didn't even know he had. Afterwards, she perched on top of him, half-wearing his white dress shirt, and he drank in her creamy, glowing skin and that delicious pale purple satin bra she had on. Lavender shirt, lavender bra, the delicious smell of lavender in her hair…this woman would be the death of him, he knew._

"_You know, the party's probably winding down now," he began, not wanting this to end, but knowing that Meredith needed to get back to her party before she was missed._

"_Listen to me," he insisted, a dreamy smile filling his face._

"_What?" Meredith giggled._

"_We should probably sneak inside now," Derek said reluctantly, brushing her hair from her face and caressing her cheeks._

"_Oh, we've done enough sneaking for tonight," Meredith answered with a smile. "It was good sneaking, but enough sneaking."_

"_Yeah, I'd say we're pretty good sneakers," Derek agreed, as he pulled his shirt all the way up over her shoulders. She began to button it, but somehow, she got distracted, and leaned down for another kiss, __bracing her hands on his bare chest. Sneaking was good, Derek realized as their tongues intertwined once more. Sneaking was…very, very…_

_They were interrupted by an insistent knock on the window of the Lexus, and they both looked up in alarm to see Miranda Bailey through the glass. Their lusty smiles froze on their faces as Bailey's coffee-colored eyes seemed to bore holes through the both of them._

"_You mind movin' this tail wagon?" she demanded sarcastically. "You're blockin' me in." Much to their relief, she then turned to go, and Derek turned back to face Meredith._

"_Apparently not good enough," he replied soberly, then cleared his throat as Meredith looked helplessly at Bailey's retreating figure._

"Yeah, I'd say so," Scotty chortled, meriting glares from both Derek and Miller. Derek's was one of challenged masculine pride, while Kat's was one that clearly said, _Ain't like you got a lotta room to talk, Man Candy._

Miller stepped in. If she had to watch Scotty and Derek glare at each other like a couple of damn fighting roosters one more time, so help her, she'd smack the both of them.

"So, you think Dr. Bailey might have told the Chief?" Miller asked.

"Well, she did make Meredith's life hell for a while after that," Derek replied, "so it seemed like she was keeping our secret…but then Addison showed up, so…" he trailed off uncomfortably, clearly not wanting to discuss the subject of his former wife.

"Well, if you think of anything else," Miller replied quickly, handing him a card.

"There is…someone else you might want to talk to," Derek volunteered.

"Somebody besides you?" Scotty retorted. "This better be good."

Derek shot Scotty another icy glare before continuing. "Oh it is. Dr. Torres," he supplied. "Callie Torres…she's an orthopedic surgeon."

"What's she got to do with any of this?" Scotty asked darkly.

Derek shot Scotty a triumphant glance. "Dr. Torres was, for a brief while, Dr. O'Malley."

"Callie O'Malley?" Kat replied in disbelief. "As in, Mrs. George O'Malley?"

"The one and only," Derek replied with a tight smile. "But that marriage was…tragically brief."

"I still ain't hearin' what that's got to do with Izzie Stevens," Scotty reminded Derek pointedly.

"If you'd let me finish," Derek answered, glaring once more at Scotty, "you'd learn that George O'Malley cheated on his wife…with Izzie Stevens."

Scotty and Kat shot one another a surprised glance.

"O'Malley didn't mention that," Scotty remarked, hating to concede defeat to this pompous jackass, but knowing that, if George O'Malley had, in fact, slept with Izzie Stevens, that certainly gave Callie Torres a clear motive for murder.

"Well, it sounds like you all have a far more productive interview to conduct," Derek remarked smoothly as he opened the office door. "Now, if you'll kindly leave Meredith and me out of this, we'd be most appreciative."

"I wouldn't count my chickens just yet…Doc," Scotty spat as they left the office.

Kat rolled her eyes yet again as Scotty fumed next to her. "Man, I hate that guy. That arrogant, know-it-all brain surgeon. Who the hell does he think he is, anyway, all cocky and condescendin'? Callin' me a liar…y'know, this is exactly why I don't like doctors."

_Good lord, there's two of 'em, _Miller realized, _only this one cuts people open for a living. _She shuddered slightly, and Scotty shot a fiery glance in her direction.

"What?" he demanded.

Miller shot him a withering glance. "Next time, just whip out a ruler, for God's sake. It'd be a helluva lot easier."


	4. My Favorite Mistake

**Chapter Four: My Favorite Mistake**

That night, Lilly and Scotty lay in bed, Lilly perusing the case files to get a good angle on the next day's interviews while Scotty caught the tail end of SportsCenter. When the show ended, he clicked off the TV, gave the cats a good night caress, switched off the lamp on his side of the bed, then turned to Lilly with a spark in his eyes.

"You ready for bed?" he asked, in a tone that suggested anything but sleep.

Lilly smiled over at him. "I guess so…you tired?"

"Not yet," he answered with a wicked grin and a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Me neither," she replied, tossing the file onto the nightstand, switching off the light, and snuggling down closer to Scotty. Suddenly, she paused, sat back up, turned her light back on, picked up the picture of Izzie Stevens that was leaning against the lamp, and hastily shoved it into the file before turning the light off once more.

Scotty was mystified. "You put her picture away," he said with a confused frown.

"Good work, detective," Lilly purred into his ear, her hair tickling his shoulders.

"You never do that," he mused, hoping to fight back the waves of lust that threatened to engulf him…at least, until he figured out Lilly Rush's latest mysterious move.

"Not usually," she replied with a cryptic smile, feathering kisses across his bare chest.

"What'd you do that for? You know I ain't bothered by it …." Scotty continued.

Lilly paused, took a deep breath, then said, a bit nervously, "Let's just say I don't feel like sharing you with Bethany Whisper tonight."

Scotty started to protest, but the words died on his lips as Lilly straddled him and devoured his lips in a hungry kiss.

* * *

"Looks like George O'Malley left out a major detail," Miller remarked to Stillman as she approached him in the kitchen the next morning. Stillman finished pouring his coffee and glanced at her with interest.

"What kind of detail?" he asked, peering at her over the rim of his mug.

"Apparently he was married to an orthopedic surgeon at Philly Grace for a brief period a few months before Izzie Stevens was killed," Kat explained. "And, according to what we heard yesterday, he cheated on his wife with Izzie."

"Well, that is a major detail," Stillman agreed, glancing at Kat's notes. "Let's find the Doctors O'Malley and bring 'em in."

"They're already on their way," Kat answered.

"Good. Now, what have we learned from this Dr. Bailey I keep hearing about?" Stillman continued. "Anybody talk to her yet?"

Miller sighed. "Will's been callin' her, but she ain't callin' us back."

"Well, keep trying," Stillman says. "Sounds like she keeps track of everyone and everything in that hospital."

"Will do, Boss," Kat replied as Vera strolled in. Quickly, she glanced from him to the lone remaining donut in the box, then deftly reached out, retrieved the pastry, and took a large bite.

"Dammit," Vera griped, and Miller laughed triumphantly around her mouthful of donut.

Stillman merely shook his head with the slightest of chuckles, took a sip of coffee, and headed back toward his office.

* * *

"Let's try again, O'Malley," Vera said brusquely as he and Lilly headed into the interview room where George sat forlornly at the table.

George looked up at them, wide-eyed. "Try--try again?" he stammered nervously. "Try what?"

"Try telling us the truth, George," Lilly ordered icily.

"You've left out some pretty major details, pal," Vera added.

"Details?" George repeated, stalling for time. "What…what kinda details? I told you everything I know about Izzie."

Vera chortled at this. "I don't think so, man. I know if it were me who got to bang Bethany Whisper, I'd be shoutin' it from the rooftops."

George's eyes dropped to the table, and he was silent.

"So," Vera continued, sitting down across from George with a conspiratorial leer in his eyes. "Was she good?"

George finally met Vera's eyes, and Lilly was surprised to see a bit of a glare reflected in George's normally timid expression. "I'm not gonna talk about that."

"Well, you've gotta tell us what happened," Lilly pressed, "because we know you wound up in bed with Izzie."

George sighed, a defeated look in his eyes. "Izzie never liked Callie," he began softly. "I—I never quite knew why…I just figured it was because I met Callie right after I slept with Meredith."

The two detectives exchanged a look. "Meredith? As in, Meredith Grey?"

George sighed again. "Yeah…I was in love with her for a while…but then I met Callie, and then my dad died…and next thing I know, we're in Vegas getting married at…the Church of Elvis or something." He smiled ruefully.

_George O'Malley bangs every chick in sight? Church of…Elvis? What the hell kind of hospital is this? _Vera wondered idly.

"And…Callie didn't want me talking to Izzie, like, at all," George continued, "…so I stopped talking to her. I was trying to make my marriage work…but Callie didn't let up. So this one night, we had a fight, and the next thing I know, I'm at Meredith's house with a bottle of bourbon…and Izzie…"

_Music: "Move You" by Anya Marina_

_George and Izzie sat on the floor of Meredith Grey's kitchen, leaning against the cupboards, the bottle of bourbon between them._

"_Suck it up…go back, with your tail between your legs, and just apologize," Izzie instructed, her voice slurred by the steady stream of bourbon she'd consumed over the last hour or so._

"_No!" George protested drunkenly. _

"_No, really, look," Izzie continued, talking over George's objections. "I'm sorry, I'm an ass, blah blah blah, and then it's over, and then it's all over." He started to protest further as Izzie removed the clip holding up her golden hair and shook it down over her shoulders like a waterfall, then took another sip of her drink._

"_I can't be wrong all the time," George asserted. "Is that really possible?" he asked, as Izzie laughed slightly. She picked up the bottle of bourbon and started to pour herself a refill. _

"_No…don't finish…" George pouted, pawing at the bottle._

"_Hey, don't be grabby!" Izzie protested loudly, snatching the bottle away from his hand. _

"_But I don't have any…" George argued weakly, and Izzie relented, handing him the bourbon, and he poured some of the amber liquid into his glass._

"_Maybe you're wrong all the time, maybe she's just…really insecure, it doesn't matter, you still have to grovel," Izzie said with a drunken giggle._

"_She's insecure," George agreed, his eyes beginning to glaze over with alcohol. "That is a fact. She's In. Secure," he repeated, as Izzie took another swig of her drink. _

_Suddenly, Izzie looked at him strangely. "What?" she giggled, as George sipped from his glass. "Just tell me!" she ordered._

"_Hm-mm," George demurred, taking another drink. He really shouldn't be talking about this…not with Izzie._

"_Come on," Izzie protested, then waited maybe two seconds before repeating her command, even louder and more drunkenly than before, causing George to laugh and spill bourbon down the front of his T-shirt._

_Aw, screw it. "It's, um, nothin'….it's just that…she thinks you have feelings for me, and that that's the problem," he said softly, almost in a singsongy voice, with a mischievous grin. _

_Izzie did a spit-take of her bourbon and began laughing hysterically. "I love that," she gasped between giggles. "That's fabulous!"_

"_And…and…and…" George continued, beginning to laugh himself. "…and…that I…I—I—I desperately want you," he added, a slight blush creeping into his cheeks. Callie…couldn't be right…could she? Maybe it was the booze. He wasn't sure. They stared at one another for a minute, then burst out laughing once more, George's giggles dissolving into coughs. _

"_I'm crying," Izzie laughed…"I'm crying." She wiped tears from underneath her eyes and looked up at George again. "Is she crazy?"_

"_You know, I think she might be a little crazy," George admitted softly, causing Izzie to burst into another spasm of laughter. _

"_Can't breathe," she managed, pointing to her chest. _

_George snaked an arm behind her neck, shushing her in hopes that they didn't wake her roommates, and in the process, he banged the back of his head against the kitchen cabinets. _

"_Owwww," Izzie giggled in sympathy._

_When George opened his eyes again, he found Izzie staring at him, looking deep into his eyes, still giggling occasionally from time to time. Suddenly, her expression changed, from one of mirth to one of something far more serious…he knew even in his addled state that his face reflected the same thing…_

"And…everything's a little hazy after that…" he said guiltily. "But we slept together. I got drunk and slept with my best friend. I'm such a cliché."

Lilly knew in her bones that Vera was shooting her a mischievous glance, so she ignored him, keeping her eyes locked on George O'Malley. George looked up at them then, his green eyes wide and pleading.

"How'd I get to be this guy?" he asked rhetorically. "How'd I get to be the guy that gets drunk and cheats on his wife with his best friend?"

"How long did the affair last?" Lilly asked.

"Not long…me and Izzie tried again…but we realized that, even though we loved each other…the chemistry just wasn't there." He sighed again. "I screwed up….I feel terrible about what happened. Callie…she really loved me."

Vera and Lilly exchanged a glance.

"Tell us more about Callie," Lilly said, flipping a page in her notebook.

George sighed. "Callie was…intense. She was just…really, really, intensely into me…it kinda scared me."

"Scared you how?" Vera asked, leaning in closer to George.

"She was just so…emotional…and out there…and just…intense," he repeated, looking at them earnestly. "Nobody's ever been as into me as she was…I just…I don't know what else to say."

"Did Callie find out about the affair?" Lilly asked. George merely nodded in response.

"How'd she react?" Vera inquired.

"She kicked me out…but then she kinda forgave me…and then we got divorced, and we were civil," George replied.

"She forgave you? " Lilly repeated incredulously. "'Cause I gotta tell you, if my man cheats on me, I'm not gonna be the forgive and forget type."

She avoided Vera's eyes, knowing without even looking up that they'd be sparkling with mischief.

"And you say she was intense," Lilly continued, leaning on the table across from George. "How'd she respond to Izzie after she found out you cheated?"

George thought for a moment, started to say something, then shook his head.

"You got somethin' you wanna get off your chest, there, George?" Vera pressed.

George sighed reluctantly. "Callie hated Izzie. Even before the affair. And for good reason."

"Yeah?" Lilly asked George, arching a brow.

"Izzie…never really supported our marriage. She thought it was too fast…she thought I just got married because my dad had just died. And…Callie took exception," George explained.

"You don't say," Vera said drily.

"How'd she take exception?" Lilly asked.

"Well, there was that scene in the cafeteria, right after we…y'know…and Callie found out…" George said reluctantly. "Izzie got it in her head that Callie wanted to fight her in the cafeteria at noon, and they both showed up…but nothin' happened."

Vera and Lilly exchanged another glance. "Well, maybe what Callie had to say was best said in private," she said, rising.

"No…you can't…Callie wouldn't have done this," George protested, leaping to his feet.

"You said yourself she was…intense," Vera reminded him, flipping back a page in his notebook. "Those are the types you gotta watch out for. Hell hath no fury…" he began.

"Was Callie ever…violent?" Lilly asked.

George thought for a moment. "Not…violent…exactly, "he hedged, glancing at them nervously.

"Just intense," Lilly finished for him. George nodded.

* * *

A few minutes later, in the next interview room, Callie Torres sat at the table, leaning back in the chair, arms crossed defiantly over her chest, as Kat and Jeffries strode in. Miller perched on the edge of the table while Jeffries lurked in the corner.

"Heard you had a pretty intense thing for George O'Malley," Miller began.

Callie sighed. "I…guess you could say that," she replied, wincing slightly.

"Somethin' you wanna share about that?" Jeffries asked her.

Callie glared up at the detectives. "Look…I…that was…just a humiliating chapter in my life, and I really don't want to revisit it, not for you or anyone."

"Your ex-husband's girlfriend wound up dead, Callie," Miller replied fiercely. "And we know you hated the woman. Hell, I would've. My man cheats on me with some blonde bimbo underwear model, no way in hell do I not hate her. Court's gonna understand that, Callie."

Callie glanced between the two detectives, her tough attitude suddenly evaporating. "What the--? I didn't kill Izzie Stevens."

"According to what we heard," Jeffries began smoothly, "there was a…scene in the cafeteria?"

Callie rolled her dark eyes. "Oh, God," she began. "Look, George told me what happened between him and Izzie…how he betrayed me with the very woman who had dissed our marriage. Violently. Repeatedly. And…I know you don't believe me. Hell, nobody else did. I told Izzie I wanted to talk to her, and she and everybody else thought I wanted to kick her ass. Which, I won't deny I wanted to. But right then…I didn't want to fight her. I just wanted to talk to her…to try and make her see how badly she'd hurt me…"

_Music: "Hawaii" by Meiko_

_Callie angrily strode down the hallway, her cheeks still stinging from the humiliating scene in the cafeteria. She rounded the corner, and suddenly found herself face-to-face with the cause of all her pain and humiliation: Izzie Stevens. Quickly, Callie turned around and walked in the opposite direction, but Izzie followed her. _

"_Callie….Callie, wait; please, wait," she called._

_Shaking her head from side to side slightly, Callie continued walking at first, then stopped, clenching her jaw, but didn't turn around. She had something to say to this woman, and the sooner she said it, the better she'd feel. She hoped._

"_I'm sorry," Izzie began softly. "I'm sorry about the cafeteria, I didn't know that you wanted to talk to me, I thought you wanted to kill me."_

_Callie's brow furrowed slightly, then she turned around to face Izzie. Folding her arms across her chest, she refused to meet the blonde doctor's eyes. _

"_I'm sorry about everything…" Izzie continued. "…with George, I'm…I'm really sorry," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I feel terrible."_

_Callie regarded Izzie like she'd regarded that spider she'd found in her bathroom that morning, then walked around her without saying a word. Izzie closed her eyes in relief and exhaled slightly. _

_Behind her, Callie stopped and turned around. The words were boiling up within her, and removing herself from the situation wasn't going to do any good. She had to say it._

_Sensing that her adversary had stopped, Izzie turned to face her._

"_You feel terrible?" Callie asked softly in disbelief, dark eyes blazing. "You took advantage; he was your best friend. I tried to trust you, so much I tried to convince myself that it was all in my head, that I was crazy, but I wasn't, was I?" _

_Izzie, hands on her hips, couldn't say anything to defend herself, she just looked at the floor._

_Callie continued, slightly irritated by the fact that Izzie's contrition wasn't giving her any satisfaction whatsoever. _

"_And then you pulled that thing in the cafeteria today; it's not bad enough that you humiliate me by getting in bed with my husband, you have to humiliate me at work, too," she spat. She took a step closer to Izzie, then spoke in a lethal whisper._

"_George broke his vows, but you…we're women, Izzie. You did this to another woman…" Callie shook her head back and forth, struggling for the right words. 'You…you took something from me. You…stole something from me like a petty little thief."_

_Clearly mortified, all Izzie could do was stare at the floor._

_Callie continued, her voice soft, but tremulous with anger and unshed tears. "You are the one who should be humiliated. You are the one who should be ashamed. You are the one who should…" she trailed off, stopping herself from saying more, since it wouldn't do any good anyway, and struggled to control her emotions. _

_After a moment, she regained her confidence, lifted her head, and looked the blonde doctor, the one who had singlehandedly destroyed the best thing Callie had ever had, straight in the eyes. _

"_Don't you dare come to me for forgiveness, you traitorous bitch," she ordered icily, still shaking her head slightly, and then she was gone._

Miller looked Callie square in the eye as she sat on the edge of the table.

"Being cheated on…it sucks," Kat declared. "And Izzie Stevens spent months tearing you down, tearing your marriage apart, until finally, she stole your husband right out from under you. I don't blame you a bit. Hell, I woulda killed the traitorous bitch myself. But you can only help yourself if you tell us what happened."

Callie flipped a lock of raven hair behind her shoulder and met the detective's gaze with a fiery one of her own.

"Look," she admitted. "There was a time when I wanted Izzie dead, and I would have loved to be the one to do it. Believe me, if I'd have killed her, I'd be sitting here braggin' about it. But it wasn't me," she said evenly. "I was in OR 3 that night, elbow-deep in someone's fibula. You can check the OR log."

"Oh, we will," Miller replied, as they rose to leave.

"For what it's worth," Callie called after them. "I didn't hate Izzie anymore...not toward the end. After a few months, I just…didn't care. I realized that George O'Malley wasn't worth it."

She stopped, smiled slightly, and continued. "I was upset at the time, I said some things I maybe shouldn't have, but I don't regret them one bit. And I've moved on. I'm happy now."

"Happy," Jeffries echoed.

"Blissfully so," Callie said, a wide smile spreading across her face. "Most people…well…they think I'm a freak. And maybe I am, I don't know…but I've finally found someone who gets me. And…I'm glad I gave love a second chance, y'know?"

Miller smiled slightly. "I get that," she replied, and something about her tone drew a curious glance from Jeffries. Was the ever-elusive Kat Miller…seeing someone? He knew it'd be a cold day in Hell before he got the truth out of her, though, so he turned his attention back to Callie Torres.

"We'll check those OR logs, confirm your story," he said, as they started to leave.

Miller turned back to Callie. "Can you think of…anyone else who might have motive to kill Izzie?"

Callie glanced back and forth nervously for a brief instant, then hid her discomfort behind a confident smile. "My roommate," she replied.

"And who might that be?" Jeffries asked.

"Cristina Yang," Callie said, with just a hint of disgust in her voice. "Cardio goddess. Well…former cardio goddess. Until Burke left, and Erica--Dr. Hahn," she hastily corrected, "showed up, and for some reason, started giving Izzie all the cardio surgeries."

"Murder for surgeries?" Kat exclaimed in disbelief. "You people really take it that seriously?"

Callie gave them a level gaze. "If anyone does, it's Yang."

Behind the glass, Stillman and Lilly exchanged a glance. "We talk to this Cristina Yang yet?" Stillman asked her.

"Not yet," Lilly said, opening the door to the observation room. "But…it sounds like in order to save a life…someone might not be above taking one."

* * *

That evening, the detectives sat perched on desks and straddling chairs, poring over interview notes and munching on Chinese takeout. Just then, Scotty and Vera came in from their interview with Cristina Yang, the frustration etched on both their faces.

"Any luck?" Lilly asked them, as she handed Scotty her half-finished container of moo shoo chicken.

Scotty smiled gratefully as he accepted the proffered food. "Thank God," he replied around a mouthful of Chinese. "I'm starvin'."

Lilly grinned, then turned to Vera, who was embroiled in a battle with Kat for her beef and broccoli.

"C'mon, it's family style," he protested petulantly. "Besides, you owe me, after stealin' that donut this morning."

Kat glanced around at her co-workers, but she could tell by looking at them that they all, shockingly enough, seemed to be on Vera's side.

"It is family-style," Jeffries pointed out.

"And I suppose you think we're all just one big, happy family," Miller said sarcastically. Rolling her eyes, she heaved a gusty sigh, and handed over the container, while Vera chortled in delight and Jeffries looked on with a wide smile.

Lilly watched the scene unfold with a sense of warm contentment as her feeling from the previous day returned. They really were a family. This sense of camaraderie she felt…that had to be what Meredith Grey and her fellow interns had felt before Izzie's murder. And she could tell just from the interviews that things were far from peaceful between them now. The realization turned Lilly's attention back to the case, and she glanced over at Scotty.

"So how'd the interview with Cristina Yang go?" Lilly asked him once more.

Scotty glanced down at his girlfriend. He'd been so driven by the need for food that he'd almost completely forgotten about the interview.

"Dead end," he replied, digging his chopsticks into the container for another bite. "Chick definitely had motive…and I'd think she mighta done it, but she claims was in OR Two that night. OR logs backed it up."

"Same as Meredith Grey," Lilly recalled.

"I checked the logs for Torres and O'Malley, and both of them check out," Jeffries contributed reluctantly. "Torres was indeed in OR Three, and O'Malley was in OR One assisting Miranda Bailey with an appendectomy."

"What about Alex Karev?" Miller asked, having realized that the quest to regain custody of her beef and broccoli was futile and, as such, had begun demolishing the crab Rangoon that remained untouched.

"Got an alibi for him, too," Vera replied, barely intelligible through the mouthful of his dinner. "OR Four with Mark Sloan."

"Also known as McSteamy," Kat added. "Pretty damn accurate nickname, if you ask me."

Lilly turned to look at Miller in surprise. In all the time she'd known her, she'd never heard Kat Miller express any sort of reaction, one way or another, to any man, good-looking or otherwise.

"What?" Miller demanded in response to Lilly's incredulous stare. "The man is fine. You seen him? His ass could totally be on a calendar."

Lilly, Scotty, and Jeffries all exchanged surprised glances, and so involved were they in doing this that they missed the glare Vera shot in Miller's direction. They also missed the satisfied grin she tossed his way in reply.

Caught off guard, Vera was a sitting duck, and Kat deftly grabbed the beef and broccoli back from him. "Two can play at this game," she purred.

Nick Vera was the only one who realized she wasn't just talking about Chinese food.

"So…looks like all our doctors got airtight alibis," Scotty realized in defeat. "So…looks like the doer ain't from the hospital."

"I'm not so sure," Lilly disagreed slowly. "I dunno about you guys, but every doctor we've interviewed seems like they've been hiding something."

"I've noticed that, too," Jeffries added. "Seems like none of 'em's our doer, but they might all know who is."

"Think they're all covering for whoever the doer is?" Lilly asked.

"Maybe," Scotty replied, his expression turning thoughtful as he rummaged with his chopsticks for the last remaining bits of rice.

"Think they'd go so far as to invent alibis? I mean, there ain't exactly an unbiased outside source keepin' tabs on those doctors," Vera remarked, causing the detectives to shoot curious glances at one another.

"So…maybe none of those alibis is airtight," Jeffries mused softly.

"Well, at the very least, these doctors know somethin' they're not tellin' us," Miller agreed.

"Maybe I can help with that," an authoritative voice said from the doorway. Five detectives turned to see a short, stout black woman with an adorable toddler on her hip and a reluctant, yet defiant, expression on her face.

"And you are…?" Vera asked.

"Miranda Bailey," she answered. "You all have been callin' me nonstop today…so I'm returnin' those calls. In person. Got somethin' you all might wanna hear."


	5. The Heart of the Matter

**Chapter 5: The Heart of the Matter**

"So, what, are you guys gonna stand there all day and stare, or are you actually gonna listen to what I have to say?" Bailey demanded, looking around at the roomful of detectives who were all eyeing her curiously.

"Of course," Lilly, who was the first to recover, replied, as she grabbed her notebook and a pen.

"Right this way," she said, pointing Bailey toward the interview room. "Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? Really bad coffee?" she asked.

"No, thanks," Bailey replied, "But…could I maybe get one of you to…look after Tuck while we're doin' this? What I have to say…it's not for young ears," she said sweetly, bouncing the toddler on her hip and eliciting delighted giggles from him.

Lilly and Scotty exchanged a glance, and then slowly, all eyes in the room turned in one particular direction.

Vera, who had been sitting at his desk, minding his own business, glanced up to suddenly see all his colleagues smiling at him, their eyes twinkling with amusement.

"What?" he demanded, then followed their answering gazes to the chubby toddler in Bailey's arms.

"Oh, what the hell am I, the Baby Whisperer?" he griped.

Jeffries regarded him with a mischievous smile. "You do have a knack for kids," he replied.

"Prob'ly 'cause you think just like one," Kat retorted.

Bailey looked Vera up and down, regarding him with suspicion. "You sure he's up for this?"

"He's fine," Jeffries replied reassuringly. "He's a grouch, but he's good with kids."

"That he is," Kat agreed, and at the brief look she shot him, Vera sighed, rose from his desk, and reached for Tuck, who, for his part, was stretching both arms toward Vera with a happy squeal.

"Well, I guess if you're good enough for Tuck, you're good enough for me," Bailey replied, giving Vera one last cursory glance before turning and heading into the interview room.

"We'll be in observation," Jeffries called.

Lilly turned as Bailey settled down at the table. "You're not in on this one with me?" she asked him.

"Nah," Jeffries said with a smile. "I'd rather watch Nick babysit." Vera shot Jeffries a glare, which he ignored.

"Miller? You want in?" Lilly asked.

"And miss out on the Baby Whisperer? No, thanks. We'll just watch," she said with a smile.

Lilly glanced at Scotty. "You want in?" she asked.

"Sure," Scotty replied. "If I can handle Kat, I can handle this one." He grinned cockily and opened the door for Lilly, oblivious of the repressed laughter from his new partner.

"He can't handle you, can he?" Jeffries asked, smiling knowingly.

"Not even close," Miller replied, as they headed into observation. She turned back to look over her shoulder at Vera. "You comin'?" she asked him teasingly.

"Right behind you," Vera called, as he engaged in a playful tug-of-war with Tuck over a stuffed dog.

* * *

"So you all are lookin' into Dr. Stevens' murder," Bailey remarked.

"New information turned up," Lilly replied coolly. "You know somethin' about it?"

"I know that George O'Malley was with me in OR One the night of the murder," Bailey replied, "but that's not why I'm here."

Scotty and Lilly exchanged a glance, then turned their eyes toward Bailey.

"Any of those fools tell you Izzie Stevens fell for a patient?" she asked, and she could tell by the surprised looks the detectives shot each other that nobody had. Bailey sighed in disgust and rolled her eyes.

"Of course they didn't," she continued. "They were gonna just give you the runaround and hope you'd give up."

"This got somethin' to do with her murder?" Scotty asked, arching a brow.

Bailey sighed again. "I dunno. I wish I did. I really do. But…I knew none of those idiots would tell you about him."

"So…they all knew about this patient, and none of them said anything to us," Lilly concluded, with an exasperated glance in Scotty's direction.

Bailey glared at them. "You all call yourselves detectives, and you let a bunch of surgical residents lead you on a wild goose chase? You're just as stupid as they are. No wonder you needed my help."

Scotty was taken aback and could only blink in surprise. This woman was like Kat Miller…only…more so. And Scotty hadn't thought that was possible.

"So, help us," Lilly said evenly. "Tell us about this patient."

Bailey sighed again and rested her forearms on the table. "His name was Denny Duquette. Charming, really; sweet as can be. And…Dr. Stevens spent quite a bit of time with him." Bailey shook her head, 

then continued. "Denny presented with an enlarged, failing heart, and was waitin' for a heart transplant. We figured out that he was a candidate for the portable LVAD."

"L-what?" Scotty asked, and Bailey shot him a withering, exasperated look not unlike the ones he got from his partner from time to time.

"Left Ventricular Assist Device," she explained. "Helps heart patients be able to get out of bed and live a somewhat normal life while they're waitin' for a transplant…but there are some risks. And Stevens and Denny…had a difference of opinion about those risks…"

_Music: Grey's Anatomy original underscore_

_Bailey stood next to Denny's hospital bed, making notes in his chart as Meredith took a close look at the monitors that kept them constantly updated on his heart's condition. _

"_EKG, echo, and nuclear…all within normal limits," she announced, and Bailey nodded._

"_Denny," she began happily, "in that case, I see no reason why you can't be up walking."_

_Denny beamed, his eyes lighting with joy and the dimples in his cheeks deepening. "Music to my ears, Dr. Bailey," he responded, his voice colored with just a hint of a Southern drawl._

"_Good," she replied, as Meredith noted Denny's progress on his charts. "So, you have any questions?"_

_Denny's smile faded. "No…it's…" he began._

"_We can put it off," Bailey reassured him quickly. "No harm in waiting a few weeks if you have questions, if you're worried…"_

_Denny sighed slightly and looked up at the doctor. "I've got twenty tubes comin' outta my body, one of which goes directly into my you-know-what. At some point," he continued, the slightest trace of a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, "I'd like to use that you-know-what for somethin' besides peein' into a bag."_

_Bailey rolled her eyes and backed away, hearing way, way too much, especially since she had an inkling of where Denny was going with this, but he surprised her. _

"_Like, for instance, peein' into a toilet," he finished quickly, the grin widening._

_Bailey smiled and started to walk away, but Denny stopped her. _

"_It's just…" he sighed, then spilled the truth. "Izzie gave me medical advice, you gave me different advice. It just so happens that yours is the advice I wanna hear." _

_Bailey frowned at Denny in confusion, the wheels in her mind turning, while Meredith quickly stepped in. _

"_Well, Dr. Bailey outranks Dr. Stevens," she explained, "so it's safe to say…Dr. Bailey's advice is the one to follow."_

"_That's not what he's worried about, Dr. Grey," Bailey interrupted, realization dawning. "He's worried that Dr. Stevens might get her ego bruised and her feelings hurt, am I right?" _

_Denny feigned innocence, but the slight trace of panic that flickered through his hazel eyes told Bailey that the game was up, her fears had been confirmed. There was definitely something going on between Stevens and Denny. She saw Meredith steal a sidelong glance in her direction, and suddenly realized that, whatever was going on, Grey had at least some knowledge of it._

"_No, no, definitely no," Denny lied with a shake of his head, but Bailey wasn't finished._

"_Because it would concern me if you were makin' medical decisions based on how our Dr. Stevens might FEEL about it," she said, her voice quiet, but lethal._

"_Well, in that case, I say we—we do this thing," Denny said firmly. "Screw that dizzy blonde doctor girl."_

"_That's not helpin', Denny," Bailey informed him._

"_No?" Denny asked, his voice plaintive._

"_No," Meredith and Bailey responded in unison, Meredith with a slight grin, Bailey with another glance in the intern's direction, trying to ascertain what, exactly Grey knew about…whatever was going on here._

_As soon as they left his room, Bailey began her interrogation._

"_What's goin' on between Stevens and Denny?" she demanded. "Is it a crush, is it a…innocent flirtation, or is Stevens actually crossin' the line?"_

"_I know she likes him," Meredith admitted, "I can't imagine Izzie would do that."_

"_Uh-huh," Bailey replied, searching the young doctor's face. "I I couldn't imagine you and Yang would be stupid enough to fall for your attendings, but I was wrong about that, wasn't I?"_

"_I'm knitting these days," Meredith responded quietly, as Bailey put the finishing touches on Denny's chart. "Plus, I'm thinking about accepting a date with a veterinarian."_

"_Grey," Bailey interrupted. "do you actually believe I care?"_

_Meredith hesitated for a second. "No," she answered matter-of-factly._

"_Good," Bailey replied. "Maybe you're not so stupid after all."_

"So how'd you figure out Stevens was crossin' the line?" Lilly asked.

Bailey sighed. "I…saw them hugging…saw the look on her face…and a few weeks later, I found out she'd actually agreed to marry him."

Lilly and Scotty exchanged a glance.

"You're sayin' they got married?" Scotty asked, frantically searching his notes for some prior mention of this.

Bailey smiled sadly. "Denny died the day he proposed," she explained. "Complications from his transplant surgery." She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it quickly with a shake of her head.

"So…he got a heart," Lilly surmised.

"He did," Bailey confirmed. "But…just in case things didn't work out, he'd made a few last-minute alterations to his will. Denny Duquette was a very rich man, it turns out. Left eight million dollars to Dr. Stevens."

"Eight million dollars?" Lilly repeated in disbelief.

"Any idea what she did with it?" Scotty asked, eyes bright with curiosity.

"She and I started a free clinic," Bailey replied. "The Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic. I'd just given it over to her when she was killed."

Bailey sighed as she rose to leave. "You know…whatever happened to Stevens…it's partially my fault. I…didn't keep a close enough watch on my interns. Grey and Yang were stupid enough to fall for their attendings, Stevens fell for a patient, and the rest of 'em were so busy havin' sex in supply closets and on-call rooms that there was actually a syphilis outbreak in the hospital a while back. Syphilis!" Bailey shook her head in disgust, then gathered her things.

"I'm glad I'm not the boss of these idiots anymore," she continued, then glanced up at the detectives. "You…might wanna talk to Karev again. The surgery he had with Sloan got canceled that night…and Stevens was shaggin' him in the supply closets when she fell for Denny in the first place."

Lilly and Scotty thanked Bailey for her time, and showed her into the observation room, where she happily greeted her son, thanked Vera for watching him, and headed toward the elevator.

Once Bailey had departed, Lilly and Scotty went into Stillman's office.

"Anything good?" Stillman asked.

"Oh, yeah," Scotty replied, and Stillman peered over the rims of his glasses with interest.

"Our Dr. Stevens fell in love with a patient," Lilly said, a touch of impatience coloring her tone. "All these interns knew about it, but apparently they were too busy having sex in supply closets to bother to let us know." She tossed her notes down on the boss's desk, and he skimmed them with interest.

"So…looks like Stevens and this Denny Duquette had quite a thing," he mused. "Eight million dollars?"

"Eight million dollars is a lot of money," Lilly began, and Scotty and Stillman looked over at her with interest. They both recognized, from years of experience, the expression Lilly got on her face when she was close to figuring something out.

"You think…Stevens was a gold-digger?" Stillman asked, his brows arched curiously.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Lilly replied.

"See if you can get in touch with any of Duquette's family," Stillman suggested. "If she was a gold-digger, could be one of his relatives took exception."

"You thinkin' a revenge angle, Boss?" Scotty asked.

Stillman took a sip of his coffee. "Well, if I'm related to a dying millionaire and some girl I don't even know gets his fortune, I'd at least have some questions," he replied, and Lilly and Scotty nodded in response.

"And someone needs to have another chat with Alex Karev," Scotty added, "Bailey just blew a hole right through the middle of his alibi."

Stillman nodded in agreement, then continued to issue instructions.

"See if anybody out there can check with the hospital records, confirm Denny's cause of death," he concluded, and Scotty and Lilly nodded and headed out of his office.

When they returned to the squad room, they were surprised to discover all three of their colleagues frantically scribbling through some paperwork.

"What's with all this?" Scotty asked, indicating the papers scattered over their desks. "You get a lot outta that interview?"

"We're changin' our emergency instructions," Vera replied tersely, not bothering to look up.

"Turns out all three of us have Philly Grace as our hospital of choice," Jeffries added.

"God forbid I ever get shot again, I don't even wanna be in the same _county _as that place," Kat remarked angrily, scribbling through another line of her instructions. "Sex in the on-call rooms…syphilis outbreaks…sounds like more of a brothel than a hospital."

"You guys might wanna check yours, too," Vera told them, finally glancing in their direction, "unless you wanna get syphilis."

Lilly chuckled. "I'm headed for Mercy West if I ever take a bullet," she said, and Scotty nodded in agreement.

"Blessed Sacrament for me," he replied as their colleagues stuffed their instructions back into their files and headed into Stillman's office to return them to their rightful place.

Lilly watched in amusement as her colleagues traipsed into the boss's office, and then stole a sidelong glance at Scotty to find him looking at her, eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Y'know," he began casually, "I've been thinkin' maybe we oughta have an…on-call room." He wiggled his brows suggestively.

Lilly couldn't help the blush that crept into her cheeks. "Didn't you hear anything Bailey said? It's unprofessional…leads to all kinds of trouble."

"Wouldn't lead to a syphilis outbreak," Scotty argued, a grin lifting the corners of his mouth. "Or murder."

Lilly rolled her eyes. "Dream on, Valens," she said.

Scotty grinned, undeterred, as he turned to leave.

"Oh, I am," he murmured into her ear, his breath tickling the sensitive skin of her earlobe, and he was pleased to note the sudden flush of heat he could feel from Lilly's skin. Satisfied, he tossed her a triumphant glance and headed into the break room for some coffee.

* * *

"It ain't lookin' too good for you, Karev," Vera began as he and Jeffries entered the interview room, where Alex sat reluctantly at the table.

"Why's that?" Alex asked cynically.

Jeffries pulled up a chair across from him while Vera leaned against the end of the table. "You've been leavin' a lot of stuff out," he said pointedly.

"Such as?" came the defiant reply.

"Such as, your alibi doesn't hold water," Vera continued. "We checked the OR logs; that surgery you had with Sloan the night of the murder got canceled. Nobody can vouch for you at the time of Izzie's death."

Alex rolled his eyes.

"We also heard she dumped your ass for a heart patient," Jeffries added, somewhat impatiently.

"That had to sting a little," Vera chuckled. "You…college wrestler, surgical stud, gettin' the shaft for some bedridden dude with tubes everywhere?"

"We think maybe you took exception to that," Jeffries concluded. "Maybe got in a fight with her about Denny…things got a little carried away."

"Girlfriend like that, I'd sure as hell get jealous," Vera added empathetically.

"Look, you guys are way off," Alex scoffed. "I was jealous of Denny, I'll admit. But the night he died, I saw how much she loved him…and I backed off. She was never the same Izzie after that," he finished, his voice turning soft and reflective.

"You can wax poetic all you want to, man," Jeffries retorted, "but unless you give us some reason to think you didn't kill her, you're goin' down for this."

"No alibi…prior history…a mean right hook…you're lookin' mighty good for our doer," Vera continued, leaning in closer.

Alex looked from one detective to the other, seeming to wrestle with something in his head. Finally, he sighed in defeat.

"Y'know, fine. Whatever. I'm done coverin' this up. She's dead anyway, so it's not like she's gonna get hurt," he grumbled. "I wasn't even there."

"Weren't even there when? " Jeffries pressed, glancing over at Vera.

"The day Denny got the heart. I wasn't there. So I dunno exactly what happened." Alex looked from Vera to Jeffries, took a deep breath, and launched into his story.

"Denny was high on the transplant list, and a donor heart became available," he explained. "Me and Burke went over to Mercy West to get it, but when we got there, the heart wasn't viable. There was another donor heart Dr. Hahn was gettin' ready to harvest, but…things got a little screwy after that…"

_Music: Grey's Anatomy original underscoring_

_Alex stood in the doorway of the operating room at Mercy West while Burke and Hahn began to argue._

"_Just because your donor's heart died doesn't mean I have to give you mine," Hahn insisted._

"_Is your patient higher on the transplant list?" Burke asked heatedly. When Hahn didn't respond, Burke repeated his question. "Is he higher on the transplant list?" _

"_I have no idea," Hahn replied. _

"_Well," Burke retorted smoothly. "Neither do I." Turning to Alex, he ordered him to get UNOS on the phone. Alex nodded his assent._

"_Oh, give me a break," Hahn scoffed. She glanced at her intern, who picked up a scalpel._

"_Hey, hey," Burke protested. _

"_What, are you gonna beat him up?" Hahn asked sarcastically._

"_If I have to," Burke answered smoothly._

"_Okay, just hold on," Hahn ordered her intern, then turned back to Burke. "It's pathetic, Preston…really pathetic," she informed him._

_A few minutes later, they all gathered in the conference room, the representative from UNOS piped in on speaker phone._

"_Your guy's on an LVAD, he's probably up and walking around; my guy still needs his Dibutamine drip," Hahn was saying cynically. _

"_That's the best you can do?" Burke retorted, pacing the room on the opposite side of the conference table. "He can climb Mount Shasta on a Dibutamine drip." Hahn shook her head incredulously._

"_As of this morning," the UNOS representative interrupted, "Dr. Hahn's patient was twenty-two hundredths of a point ahead."_

"_That's basically a tie," Burke realized. _

"_Except that Dr. Hahn's patient was admitted into the transplant program before Mr. Duquette," the UNOS representative pointed out. Hahn looked across the table at Burke in triumph._

"_How long before?" Burke asked._

_There was a pause, as the representative searched for the information. "Seventeen seconds," came the reply._

"_Seven. Teen. Seconds," Burke echoed in disbelief._

"_Might as well be seventeen weeks, it doesn't matter," Hahn gloated. _

_Burke's phone rang then, and he glanced at the caller ID, sighed, and slid it down the table to Alex, who grabbed it, retreated to the doorway, and answered it._

"_Alex?" Izzie's voice came over the line. "Where's Dr. Burke?"_

"_What do you want?" Alex demanded. _

"_I wanna know how the heart recovery's going," Izzie replied, trying desperately to sound casual, but Alex knew her well enough to know that she was failing miserably. _

"_He's workin' on it," Alex answered, hoping she wouldn't press for details._

"_He's working on it," Izzie repeated, "so he's…operating then?"_

_Alex sighed in defeat. "There were two donors, Izzie," he explained. "Our guy's heart flatlined, and now he's tryin' to get the other guy's."_

"_But…there's a list," Izzie insisted nervously._

"_Yes," Alex agreed, "and the higher guy gets the heart."_

_He could sense the panic on the other end of the phone, but Izzie didn't say anything for a few seconds. Finally, she spoke again, her voice filled with panic._

"_Denny's getting sicker," she told him._

"_What?" Alex asked._

"_Denny's getting worse by the second," Izzie repeated frantically. "His, uh, his sats are in the 80s."_

_Alex sighed again. "Izzie," he said softly, but she didn't let up._

"_It's 70s," she continued, "his sats are now in the…70s and dropping."_

"_Izzie," Alex said quietly, "I'm not gonna lie for you." _

"_Then put Burke on the phone," she ordered._

Alex looked at the two detectives. "I had no idea what she was doing. But she and Burke were on the phone for quite a while, and finally UNOS gave us the heart."

Vera looked up suspiciously. "You think maybe the fact that Denny suddenly got worse had somethin' to do with Izzie tryin' to get him that heart?"

Alex's silence was all the assent the detectives needed.

"So…Izzie did something to get Denny ahead on the transplant list," Jeffries mused. "Any ideas what?"

"I dunno," Alex repeated defiantly. "Like I said…I wasn't there. But Grey and O'Malley were."

"You weren't there the night Denny died," Jeffries said. "Feel like tellin' us where you were the night Izzie was killed?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "I washed my hands of this whole mess a long time ago. I was in the on-call room the night Izzie died. With a scrub nurse," he finished with a tight, defiant smile.

Vera and Jeffries exchanged a glance.

"Any chance you remember her name?" Vera asked.

"Megan," Alex replied. "Think I got her number somewhere."

"We're gonna need that," Jeffries told him as they rose to leave.

Behind the glass, Lilly and Kat were waiting for them.

"Looks like we might have another murder on our hands," Lilly pointed out.

"Well, if Izzie did something to make Denny get that heart…wonder what happened to the patient who was ahead of him on the transplant list," Jeffries mused.

"Looks like Izzie mighta stolen more hearts than just Denny's," Vera quipped drily.

"Seriously," Kat and Lilly replied in unison.

Jeffries frowned at them incredulously. "We're…not gonna do that, either," he informed them.


	6. The First Cut Is The Deepest

**Chapter Six: The First Cut Is The Deepest**

Scotty sighed as he replaced the phone in its cradle and took a sip of coffee, then crossed another name off the list with a defiant stroke of his pen.

"Problems?" Jeffries asked, glancing up from his desk with a smile.

Scotty rolled his eyes. "Think I've talked to half the population of Memphis tryin' to get some info outta Denny Duquette's relatives, and all they're tellin' me is how great the guy was. Nobody knows crap about Izzie Stevens."

"I knew you'd been on the phone quite awhile," Jeffries replied.

Scotty answered with a wry grin. "Those Southerners…they talk so damn slow that it takes half an hour to get a thing out of 'em."

Jeffries chuckled softly.

Scotty sighed again, then picked up the phone to dial yet another number. "How the hell did I get stuck with phone duty, anyway?" he demanded.

"Figured hearin' that Southern drawl'd bring back fond memories for you," Jeffries replied with a teasing smile.

"Funny," Scotty replied drily. "You're a funny man, Will."

* * *

Meanwhile, Lilly and Miller headed into the interview room, where Meredith Grey sat, nervously fiddling with a lock of her blonde hair.

"You're not tellin' us everything you know, Dr. Grey," Kat began, perching on the edge of the table and tapping it with the edge of the file.

"I'm …pretty sure I am," Meredith replied haltingly, glancing around the room uncomfortably.

"You 're not," Lilly said icily as she leaned over Meredith.

"What else do you need to know?" Meredith asked, finally meeting Lilly's eyes. "I've told you everything I can remember about the night of the murder."

"Oh, we ain't talkin' about that," Kat said smoothly. "We're talkin' about the night Denny Duquette died."

Meredith's green eyes widened in surprise. "Why--why do you need to know about Denny?" she asked, looking nervously from one detective to the other.

"We think Izzie Stevens mighta been in over her head with him," Lilly replied. "Crazy in love with Denny…willing to do anything to make sure he gets that heart."

"The heart that belonged to someone else," Miller pointed out. "You know anything about that, Dr. Grey?"

"What…what does that have to do with her murder?" Meredith asked slowly, her expression betraying nothing.

"Maybe everything," Lilly said softly, leaning in closer. "Maybe it means you get your family back."

Meredith glanced form one detective to the other again, opened her mouth, then closed it quickly.

"Talk," Miller ordered sharply.

Meredith sighed. "I…don't know what Izzie did, exactly. I wasn't there."

"Where were you?" Lilly asked, peering into Meredith's eyes.

Meredith shook her head slowly. "I was…in the middle of a mess. My dog was dying…well, he wasn't really my dog. He was more Derek's dog. But he used to be mine. And…Derek wanted to put him down, but I wanted to hold on. And Finn…the vet I was dating…he needed a decision. And Cristina…well…she was fighting with Burke. And there was this guy who'd shot up his office, and we were treating all the victims that day…" she trailed off, her eyes slowly lowering to the table.

Lilly and Kat exchanged a glance.

"This has…what, exactly…to do with Izzie Stevens?" Miller asked pointedly.

Meredith glanced up again. "It's--it's what we were talking about when we saw her."

_Meredith and Cristina sat perched on a gurney in the hallway, filling out charts._

"_Karev," Cristina spat bitterly. "I mean, he stood there and chose that moron over me."_

"_Y'know, I tried to help the dog," Meredith replied, "and he's standing there talking about putting the dog down. Like…Doc means nothing." It was typical of her and Cristina, really, to have separate conversations. Somehow, hearing each other's troubles helped them with their own. It was very comforting, really._

"_He's not rewarding Karev, he's punishing me," Cristina declared, the anger evident in her icy voice._

"_And he hates Finn," Meredith continued. "Who, by the way, is great with dogs."_

"_Y'know, he withholds surgery when I'm a bad girlfriend," Cristina realized. "It's his MO. I mean, how controlling and macho and petulant is that?"_

"_At least he's not shooting people, or putting down dogs," Meredith argued, as Izzie suddenly appeared in the doorway, looking pale and frantic._

"_Yeah," Cristina agreed. "This relationship is so over." She glanced up then met Izzie's eyes, and the blonde doctor took this as an invitation to come closer and spill her guts, too._

"_Um, I—I told a lie. To Dr. Burke," Izzie stammered nervously._

"_Good for you. Fight the power," Cristina congratulated her, turning back to her charts._

"_No…no, I need…God, I can't think, I—I can't," Izzie managed breathlessly, turning around with a hand to her brow. Composing herself slightly, she turned back to Meredith and Cristina. "I don't know what to do. What do I do?" she asked, eliciting blank looks from her two friends._

"_There's this guy ahead of Denny on the transplant list," Izzie explained, her voice tight with panic._

_Meredith sighed sympathetically. "He'll get the next heart, Iz," she said, by way of reassurance, but her efforts seemed to have the opposite effect, as Izzie grew even more frantic._

"_No," she insisted, almost in hysterics, "he needs to get this heart." Her two colleagues looked at her again, a mixture of confusion and alarm._

"_He'll prob'ly get a heart at some point," Cristina pointed out, as kindly as she could, "but as long as Denny's doing well on the LVAD, and there's someone ahead of him on the transplant list, he's not gonna get this heart, okay?"_

_Izzie stopped, then nodded. "Yes. You're right," she agreed, but something in her breathless tone gave Meredith pause. _

"_Okay," Izzie continued, smiling strangely. "Thank you. Thank you," she repeated, pointing at Cristina, and then promptly started grabbing medical supplies, and then, to Meredith's utter mystification, and horror, her eyes fell on a crash cart, and she studied it greedily._

"_Okay, if I was gonna pick someone who was gonna go psycho and shoot up the place," Cristina remarked drily, watching her colleague wheel the crash cart out without a backward glance, "it's Izzie."_

"_Totally," Meredith agreed._

"So you don't have any idea what she was up to?" Lilly asked, her voice tinged with frustration.

"No," Meredith replied quietly, her eyes still downcast. "Like I said, I wasn't there."

"Well, where you were when Denny died? You, by any chance, on call that night?" Kat retorted.

Meredith sighed again and looked up sadly. "No, I wasn't on call. That was the night of the prom."

"Prom?" the two detectives asked in unison.

Meredith smiled slightly. "The Chief's niece had cancer and had to miss her prom, so he had one for her at the hospital. And…Derek and I were…in an exam room…when Denny died," she explained, hoping the flush that painted her cheeks would tell them what had happened without her actually having to say it.

Lilly and Kat exchanged another glance. "We can fill in the blanks," Miller said drily.

"But…" Meredith said slowly, almost reluctantly. "I think…I think maybe George was there when Izzie--when she did…whatever she did."

"George O'Malley?" Lilly asked with interest.

Meredith nodded. "He never talked about it, but…he might know."

Lilly and Kat sighed again and opened the door for Meredith to leave. As she walked out, Lilly and Kat exchanged another incredulous glance.

"Prom?" Lilly asked in disbelief.

"Sex in an exam room?" Kat replied, equally aghast. She pushed open the door and headed out into the squad room. "Incestuous cesspool," she muttered.

* * *

As they headed out into the squad room, Scotty hung up the phone triumphantly. Lacing his arms behind his head, he sighed with contentment.

"You look happy," Lilly commented as she came up behind him.

"Just got off the phone with the last Duquette in Memphis, and finally got some answers," Scotty replied.

"Am I detectin' a touch of a drawl, there, Man Candy?" Miller asked teasingly, eyeing her partner.

Scotty shot his partner a dark look. "You try talkin' on the phone to Tennessee for three hours and see how you sound," he retorted.

"No,thanks," she replied firmly.

"I dunno...I kinda like the drawl," Lilly purred into Scotty's ear as she passed, so softly that only he could hear. A very startled Scotty could only stare after her in disbelief, but quickly recovered and grinned mischievously.

"What'd you find out from the Duquettes, Scotty?" Stillman asked, coming out of his office.

"Well, our good doctor was no gold-digger, that's for sure," Scotty replied, making no effort to hide the touch of Southern drawl he had managed to acquire during his marathon of phone calls. Miller and Jeffries looked at one another curiously, but once they saw the glance Scotty shot Lilly, who hastily looked away, they figured it out. Jeffries smiled, while Kat rolled her eyes slightly.

"Talked to Denny's dad," Scotty continued, oblivious to his colleagues' perusal. "The guy didn't even know about Izzie until Denny called him after the transplant surgery and told them she'd agreed to marry him. He got suspicious, especially when Denny kicked it, so he came up here to talk to her. Gave her an interrogation that'd make us proud, and when he figured out she wasn't in it for the money, he handed her a check for eight million dollars."

"Bartender confirms the story," Jeffries replied. "Just got off the phone with him."

"Just got off the phone with who?" Vera asked, entering the office, file in hand.

"Joe the bartender," Jeffries said, turning to his colleague with a smile. "Wanted me to give you a friendly reminder about your tab."

Vera shot Jeffries a glare before dropping the file onto the desk. "Denny Duquette's autopsy report," he explained. "Confirms blood clots as the cause of death. Apparently it's a pretty common risk in that type of surgery."

"So Izzie wasn't a gold-digger," Stiillman mused, "That rules out family revenge as an angle."

"We still don't know for sure what she did to get Denny that heart," Lilly told him.

"Grey wasn't forthcoming?" he asked, eyeing her over the rims of his glasses.

"Grey wasn't there," Kat replied, a touch disgustedly.

"But George O'Malley's on his way in again," Lilly added. "According to Meredith, he was there."

"Well, maybe he'll shed some light," Stillman remarked hopefully, turning and retreating back into his office.

"So, you, uh…you like the drawl?" Scotty asked, exaggerating it slightly as he walked behind Lilly's desk. She couldn't hide the blush that painted her cheeks as she turned around and gave him a slight, yet telling smile.

"Well, yee-haw," he remarked with a wicked grin, tapping the file on her desk as he headed into the interview room.

Lilly could only stare helplessly as Scotty crossed the squad room, followed closely by Jeffries. After they disappeared into the interview room, she sighed shakily and turned her attention back to her paperwork.

Vera, sitting to her right, tried his best to suppress a chuckle.

"What?" Lilly demanded, glaring fiercely in his direction.

"Nothin'," Vera said, shaking his head in amusement.

Lilly glanced around and noticed Miller watching her intently, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Anybody needs me, I'll be in Observation," she said briskly, rising from her desk, falling into step with Stillman as he walked past, and disappearing into the observation room.

"I'm sure you will," Miller muttered under her breath, and, after stealing a glance at Vera, the two burst out laughing.

* * *

George sat glumly at the interview table as Scotty and Jeffries came in to talk to him.

"We know you know more than you been tellin' us, George" Scotty began.

"I—I…" George stammered. "I thought Bailey cleared my alibi."

"She did," Jeffries confirmed. "But right now, you're in danger of an obstruction charge."

"Obstruction?" George practically squeaked.

"Yeah," Scotty said firmly, sitting down across from George. "Obstruction of justice. For not tellin' us what you know."

George looked around nervously, but still said nothing.

"We know Izzie was your friend, George," Jeffries said kindly, appealing to this man's obvious softer side. "So…whatever you've got to say, whatever she did, whatever you know…you need to tell us. For her."

George sighed. He'd sworn up and down, to God, to the Chief, to everybody, that he would never, ever tell this story. But now…now it was the only way. He looked up at the detectives, a pleading earnestness in his green eyes.

"Izzie paged me that day," he began shakily. "I thought it was for an EKG….but when I got there…she'd gone off the deep end."

_George entered the hospital room, taking in the scene before him. Denny, lying in his bed, a serene smile on his face, and Izzie, her back to him, adjusting something on Denny's chest._

"_You needed my help for an EKG?" George asked._

"_No," Izzie snapped. "Come."_

_George had never heard that tone in Izzie's voice, and against his better judgment, he entered the room, noticing with some concern that all the blinds had been drawn._

_Izzie paid him little regard as she fussed over Denny. "Okay…after I do this, I might have to shock you a few times."_

"_Do what?" George asked warily._

_Izzie glanced over her shoulder briefly at him, but couldn't be bothered to answer his question. _

"_You feelin' good?" she asked Denny breathlessly. George noticed, for the first time, that Denny Duquette had fear in his eyes. In all the months Denny had been a patient there, all the times he'd stared death in the face, all the operations and procedures he'd undergone…George had never seen fear in Denny's eyes before._

"_I think so," Denny breathed uncertainly. He looked up at Izzie, eyes wide and pleading. "Explain this to me again." He bit his lower lip nervously._

_George could only stand there as Izzie launched into a shaky, breathless explanation of the most ludicrous plan he'd ever heard. "Okay, the LVAD has been inserted into your abdomen, and is connected to your heart. This cord leads to the power source; this one is connected to the pump that pumps your heart for you," she said, indicating the two separate cords on Denny's LVAD. "I have the crash cart, the defibrillator, the ambu bag, doing…"_

"_Doing what, Izzie?" Confusion creased George's brow._

_Izzie ignored him, turned to Denny and perched on his bed. _

"_I feel like we should say stuff," she said urgently. "Denny, do you wanna say stuff?"_

_Denny responded with a wide grin as he gazed into Izzie's eyes. "Kiss me…right here…" he said, indicating his lips with two fingers. Izzie readily agreed, and George averted his eyes._

"_Izzie," Denny whispered. "A kiss is worth a thousand words."_

_George thought he heard tears in Izzie's voice as she replied, "A picture…a picture is worth a thousand words."_

"_You're gonna correct me at a time like this?" Denny teased._

_George finally found his voice. "I…don't mean to be intrusive, but…"_

"_Just gimme a second, George," Izzie burst out, finally looking his direction. She quickly turned back to Denny, raking her hand through her blonde bangs before snaking her hands behind his neck. He cupped her face in his._

"_Okay, are you ready?" she asked._

"_As I'll ever be," Denny answered, sounding a little uncertain. Izzie took this as assent, and reached behind her with her left hand, picking up a pair of scissors._

"_Wait…what are you doin'?" George asked._

_Izzie continued to ignore him, giving frantic instructions to Denny. "Denny, if there really is some kind of big glowy light…"_

_Denny shook his head with a smile. "Don't worry, I'll stay out of it."_

_George took a step forward, frantic to do something, anything to stop Izzie from doing…whatever the hell she was about to do. _

"_I don't like the sound of this," he protested._

_Izzie shot him a frantic look. "Just make sure nobody comes through that door," she ordered._

_George's mouth opened in shock. Surely…surely she couldn't be doing what he thought she was about to do…no doctor in her right mind would…_

"_What are you doing?" he asked again, slowly, carefully, and finally, finally Izzie turned to look him in the eye, and confirmed his worst suspicions._

"_I'm stopping his heart, George," she declared softly. She slowly, deliberately lined up the scissors with the LVAD wire, breathing deeply, looking Denny in the eyes. Denny gazed back at her, eyes filled with tears and hope._

"_Izzie…" George protested weakly._

_She hesitated for a moment…seemed to be reconsidering things, and for a brief instant, hope surged wildly through George's veins. Maybe she'd realize what a crazy idea this was. Maybe she'd decide it wasn't worth it. Maybe she'd come to her senses._

_But when she turned back to look at George one last time, his hopes were dashed at the determined look he saw in Izzie's brown eyes. Suddenly, he realized she wasn't a doctor right then, she wasn't in her right mind. She was a woman trying to save the man she loved the only way she knew how._

"_It's okay," she said softly, clearly trying to convince herself as well as George and Denny. "Burke'll be here any minute." And with that, she snipped his LVAD wire cleanly in two._

George sighed shakily. "But what we didn't know was…Burke had been shot…by that crazy office shooter guy. He…kinda went ballistic outside the hospital."

Although the story of a crazed office worker shooting up a hospital would normally have attracted the detectives' attention, the idea of a doctor purposely sabotaging her own patient's health was far more intriguing.

"She…cut his LVAD wire?" Jeffries exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yeah," George answered meekly. "She…had to make him sick enough to put him ahead on the transplant list. She was counting on Burke to come fix it."

"Which didn't happen," Scotty commented.

George nodded, then sighed shakily. "Can't say I blame her," he said slowly. "If the love of my life was dying, and the only way I could save her was to make her get worse so she'd get the heart, well…I mighta done the same thing."

George glanced toward Scotty, and their eyes met for a brief moment. Scotty supposed, if it were Lilly, he couldn't say, with any certainty at all, that he wouldn't be tempted to do something just as crazy as what Izzie Stevens did. If it were Lil living under a death sentence, hoping against hope that a heart would become available, only to have it ripped away…

An idea suddenly occurred to him. "What about whoever was ahead of Denny on that transplant list?" Scotty asked.

George shrugged. "I…dunno," he replied honestly. "Never heard one way or the other."

"Who else knows about this?" Scotty asked.

George sighed again. "The Chief. But…he ordered us not to talk about it."

"Us?" Jeffries repeated in disbelief.

"All the interns," George replied weakly. "We all knew what Izzie did."

"He _ordered_ you not to talk about it?" Scotty asked, shooting a glance at Jeffries.

"It'd be…bad…for the hospital…if this got out," George said quietly. "And…hell, I might not even have a job anymore after this."

"We'll make sure you do," Jeffries said, rising from his seat.

"It's the Chief I'm worried about," Scotty remarked, yanking open the door to the interview room.

Behind the glass, Lilly and Stillman exchanged a glance.

"Looks like Izzie really did steal someone else's heart," she remarked.

Stillman nodded grimly. "Sounds like I need to go talk to Chief Webber," he says. "See if I can find out whose."

* * *

**A/N: One chapter left!  
**


	7. Oh, The Guilt

**A/N: We're severely departing from Grey's Anatomy canon in this chapter, so the flashbacks here didn't really happen in the show.**

**Chapter Seven: Oh, The Guilt**

* * *

Vera replaced the phone in its cradle and grinned triumphantly at his colleagues.

"What?" Kat asked, arching a brow at him.

"Just got off the phone with Mercy West," Vera announced. "They were kind enough to give me the name of the patient who was supposed to get the heart Denny Duquette wound up with." He consulted his notes. "Patient's name was Zachary Mortensen, 42. Died two days later, still waiting for a transplant."

"Ouch," Lilly replied sympathetically.

"But the interesting this is, guy leaves behind a wife and four kids. Here's their last known address…any takers?" he asked.

Lilly grabbed eagerly at the piece of paper, and Kat peered over her shoulder at Vera's scribbling.

"Gotta hand it to you," she admitted reluctantly, looking at Vera.

"Think that's…last donut in the box-worthy?" he asked, grinning at her. Her only response was a withering glare in his direction. Chortling gleefully, Vera headed off for the kitchen.

* * *

A few minutes later, the squad room was quiet. Lilly and Jeffries had gone off to track down the patient's relatives, Vera was still munching away in the kitchen, and Stillman had headed for the hospital to talk to the Chief of Surgery. Scotty and Kat sat at their desks, catching up on paperwork, when shuffling footsteps attracted their attention.

Alex Karev stood in the doorway, still in his surgical scrubs, a hoodie pulled over them and a defiant spark in his eyes. "You guys got a minute?" he asked.

"Always," Kat replied. "You got somethin' else that might help us with this case?"

Alex sighed and looked from one to the other. "I…I still haven't told you everything…about Izzie," he said reluctantly.

Scotty and Kat exchanged an exasperated glance, then tamped down the quickly rising frustration. Karev wasn't obligated to tell them anything…and they probably needed whatever he was about to reveal.

"Come on in," Scotty suggested, leading the way to the kitchen.

Alex sniffed the air quizzically. "Coffee smells great," he commented.

Scotty glanced at him in surprise. "No kiddin'," he remarked.

"Yeah," Alex replied enthusiastically, sitting down at the table. "Smells a helluva lot better than that crap they call coffee at the hospital."

Scotty chuckled, then grabbed a mug and poured some coffee into it before handing it to Alex and joining him at the table. "So…whaddaya got for us?" he asked.

Alex sighed and looked from Scotty to Kat. "It true you're threatenin' O'Malley with obstruction of justice charges?"

"All of you, really," Kat replied matter-of-factly, leaning on the table's edge. "You all have been lyin' to us from day one."

Alex clenched his jaw and looked up at the detectives. "If anybody's been obstructing anything, it's been me. Grey…O'Malley…they know stuff, but they don't know what I know."

"Which is?" Scotty asked pointedly.

"I know it's my fault Izzie's dead," Alex began.

_Music: Dashboard Confessional, "You Have Stolen My Heart"_

_Alex Karev leaned against the nurse's station in the brand new Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic. The thing had gotten off the ground in record time, and Alex had to hand it to Bailey and Izzie: he'd never seen anything go up so fast. But, on the other hand, he hated it, because Bailey was insisting that all the interns take rotations in the clinic in addition to their usual surgical assignments. More like instead of, Alex griped. He hadn't seen the inside of an OR in two days, and had instead been handing out cold medicines and bandaging scraped knees. He was a surgeon, for God's sake. He should be saving lives, not…_

"_Karev, your patient," Bailey interrupted his dark reverie, handing him a clipboard. "Behind that curtain. Move it." Alex glanced down, not bothering to look at the patient's name or symptoms, and pulled back the curtain to see a short, stout, red-haired woman of about forty, sitting on the exam table._

"_What seems to be the trouble…Donna?" he asked, finally taking the time to read the patient's chart._

"_I think I'm…depressed…" she began, then listed symptoms that, indeed, described clinical depression to a tee. Alex listened patiently, then looked at her with compassion._

"_How long have these symptoms been going on?" he asked. "Any specific incident, any traumatic loss in your life?" _

_Donna's face crumpled, and she immediately began to cry. Alex glanced around awkwardly for a tissue, which he finally located and handed to her._

"_Thanks," she sniffled. "My husband…Zach…he died this past spring. He had heart disease…and we thought he had a heart…but some other patient got sicker all of a sudden…and..Zach…he wasn't top of the list anymore…" she trailed off, sobbing, and the wheels in Alex's head began to turn. _

"_Here's his picture," she said, fishing a snapshot from her purse. "He used to be so healthy, so full of life…and then he got sick…" she trailed off again._

_Alex took the photo from her and studied it, feeling suddenly sick to his stomach at the tall, vivacious-looking blonde man in the photo, one child on his shoulders and two others holding his hands. Donna stood next to him, cradling an infant. _

"_When did your husband die, Donna?" he asked softly, handing back the photo. _

"_May 24__th __of last year," she told him, her voice broken and full of grief. "And we maxed out his health insurance…we have four kids, and I just went back to work, but I can't afford the insurance…so I'm here…because I read, in the papers, about this free clinic…"_

_Alex's jaw clenched, and he felt rage begin to rise in his chest. This woman…this widow with four kids…she was the other side of the Denny Duquette equation. The irony sickened Alex, and, in that moment, he hated Izzie Stevens more than he ever thought possible._

"_What?" Donna asked, dabbing her eyes and looking curiously at Alex._

"_Nothin'," Alex said, fighting the urge to just tell her everything. This wasn't right. It wasn't fair. This woman had been robbed of her husband, her children's father, her source of income, everything…just because Izzie Stevens had fallen in love with a patient, and the hospital refused to do anything except give her a nominal suspension. It just wasn't right. It just wasn't fair. He had to do something. He had to…_

"_Denny Duquette," Alex blurted out before he could stop himself._

"_Excuse me?" Donna asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. "The…guy the clinic's named for? What's he got to do with…?"_

"_Denny Duquette was the patient who got your husband's heart," Alex explained, his brain shrieking at him to shut up, but his guilt being eased by each word out of his mouth. Izzie would hate him forever. Webber would fire his ass for ratting out the hospital. But Alex didn't care. He had to make this right._

"_How do you know that?" Donna asked, her voice timid and wavery._

"_Because I was there when it happened," Alex explained. "Iz—Dr. Stevens…she…she did…"_

"_What did she do?" Donna asked urgently._

"_I…I can't say anymore," Alex said reluctantly. "I'm gonna give you a prescription for an anti-depressant," he said, scribbling on his pad. He then reached into his coat pocket and handed her a _

_business card. "This is for the on-site grief counselor," he explained, handing the card to Donna. "It might help you."_

_Donna eyed Alex sharply. "What else do you know?" she demanded._

_Alex met her gaze matter-of-factly. "You might wanna get a lawyer," he told her. "'Cause it looks like you've got an excellent case against this hospital in general, and against Dr. Stevens personally." Without a backward glance, he pulled back the curtain and walked out, his heart roaring in his ears._

"I…I think I mighta said too much to Donna," he said slowly.

Kat and Scotty met each other's eyes and exchanged a glance, then Scotty turned to Alex.

"Look," he began. "What happened to Izzie…that ain't your fault. You did the right thing, she didn't. She stole a patient's heart. Now, I ain't sayin' she deserved what she got…but I am sayin'…it ain't your fault." He looked intently into the doctor's eyes, and Alex finally nodded in agreement.

"Tell your friends not to worry about those obstruction charges," Kat said softly. "And…thank you. Thank you for telling us the truth."

* * *

Lieutenant Stillman," Chief Webber greeted the boss as he stepped into the office of the Chief of Surgery. "Thanks for stoppin' by."

"Sure thing," Stillman replied, taking a seat across from Webber.

"I'd have come in myself," Webber explained, "but these damn interns…keeping track of them is a full time job in and of itself."

"I hear that," Stillman replied, chuckling sympathetically.

"Then there's the surgeries, and the paperwork…I'm lucky I ever see the outside of these four walls," he continued, and Stillman nodded in agreement.

"So…how's the Stevens case looking?" Webber asked, leaning back in his chair.

Stillman instantly dropped the jovial friendliness and fixed Webber with a steely glare. "It's funny…you actin' like you care."

Webber narrowed his eyes at Stillman. "Excuse me?" he asked icily.

"Well," Stillman explained patiently. "If you really cared about solving Izzie Stevens' case, you wouldn't have ordered all your interns to clam up about what really happened."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," Webber responded. "You…you think it was an inside job? Someone from this hospital took the life of a fellow doctor?"

"Someone from this hospital contributed to taking the life of a patient," Stillman replied, without missing a beat. "Someone from this hospital fell in love with her own patient, manipulated his statistics, and finally snipped his LVAD wire in two and stopped his heart just so he could get ahead on the transplant list. Yes, someone from this hospital took a life, it looks like to me."

Webber sighed. "So you know."

"Of course we know," Stillman snapped. "You think you were gonna keep this a secret forever?" He rose from the chair and leaned over Webber's desk. "What could possibly make you think that tellin' an entire hospital full of doctors to lie to the police would get this murder case solved? All those precious interns of yours? They're all facin' obstruction charges unless you come clean."

"This hospital is one of the largest transplant centers on the East Coast," the Chief explained. "Transplant revenues bring in millions upon millions of dollars every year, and if word about what Izzie Stevens did got out…UNOS would yank our certification so fast we wouldn't know what hit us."

"So you covered it up," Stillman concluded. "Even though it meant letting the murder of one of your own doctors, a very good doctor, by all accounts, go unpunished? The doer's still out there, y'know."

Webber sighed again and rubbed a hand over the top of his head. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I hate the fact that whoever killed Izzie Stevens is still at large?"

"So, then, why'd you do it?" Stillman demanded, his voice sharp.

Webber sighed again and began to pace the area behind the chair of his desk. "As doctors, we make life-and-death decisions all the time. Sometimes one patient has to die so others can live. And Izzie Stevens, as tragic as that was…I couldn't risk letting the secret get out. Transplants save thousands of lives each year…hundreds at this hospital alone. If we lose UNOS certification, how many people will die waiting for organs because we can't save them? Dr. Stevens wouldn't have wanted that."

"Dr. Stevens would want whoever robbed her of the ability to save those lives to spend the rest of theirs in jail," Stillman retorted. "Now tell me what else you're keeping a secret!"

Webber met Stillman's eyes, and it was clear from the expression in the Lieutenant's steely blue-gray eyes that further resistance would be futile. Sighing in defeat, he sat down. "I didn't even know whose heart it was, until…"

_Music: Grey's Anatomy original underscoring_

_Chief Webber sat at his desk, filling out paperwork. That was what he hated about being Chief of Surgery: too damn much paperwork, and not enough time in the OR. Interns running amok, his wife constantly threatening divorce…maybe it really was time to think about retirement._

_His stream of inner grumbling was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Chief?" his secretary asked. "There's a Donna Mortensen here to see you."_

_A blank look crossed Webber's face. The name didn't sound familiar. "Did she say what it's about?" _

_The secretary just shook her head, and Webber sighed. "Send her in."_

_The secretary left, and a moment later, she was replaced in his doorway by a middle-aged red-haired woman who plopped a newspaper article on his desk. "What's the meaning of this?" she demanded, her voice soft, but intense._

_Chief Webber glanced at the article. "Free Clinic Opens At Philadelphia Grace," the headline proclaimed. "Doctor Donates 8 Million Inheritance," was right underneath it._

"_One of our doctors donated some money to start a free clinic to serve underprivileged members of the community," he explained, a puzzled frown creasing his brow._

"_No," Donna hissed. "What's the meaning of this?" she asked, jabbing a finger at a picture of Denny Duquette, right next to one of Izzie Stevens._

"_Dr. Stevens was the donor," he explained. _

"_And Denny Duquette got my husband's heart because of her," Donna retorted angrily. "I know it was him. And I know Dr. Stevens had something to do with it," she added. "I know she pulled some strings, or something, to get that heart for Duquette…just don't know why. But it doesn' t matter," she continued, "because one of your doctors at the very least broke policy, and she got rewarded with the inheritance of her dead patient."_

"_Now, listen here," Webber began, but Donna wouldn't hear of it._

"_You don't tell me exactly what she did, I'm going to the papers. I'm going to the press. I'm going to UNOS," she threatened. _

_Webber sighed. "What do you want?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers._

"_I want my husband back," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "But…since that can't happen…I want to see that my kids are taken care of."_

_Webber, seeming to grasp her meaning, looked up and sighed again. "How much?" he asked._

"_Eight million dollars," Donna replied. "The same amount Stevens got, or I'm going to the papers." She stared at him icily._

"_You don't have proof," Webber argued._

"_I have a doctor who's willing to tell everything," she replied._

_Webber froze at that. One of his doctors…one of his doctors who knew exactly what happened…who could that be? He couldn't be sure. Four interns had sat in his office that spring and all had taken the blame for the Duquette debacle…and he knew they were all covering for Stevens. Such loyalty…such solidarity…he knew he could count on them to keep the secret. But now…if one of them was willing to talk…_

"_I'll have my secretary draft a check," he replied quietly._

"_Good," Donna replied. "Now, if you could tell me where I might find this…Dr. Stevens," she said, her voice dripping with contempt._

_Webber glanced up in alarm. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he answered._

_Donna nodded, then picked up the newspaper. "It's all right," she replied softly. "I've got what I need."_

_Before he could even respond, she turned and walked away._

"What did she want to see Dr. Stevens for?" Stillman asked.

"I…don't know," Webber replied. "I really don't. And…I don't want to know."

"Do you think she could have hurt Dr. Stevens?" he asked.

"I just don't know," Webber said again.

* * *

Donna Mortensen sat motionless at the table in the interview room, her eyes fixed straight ahead, unfocused, barely even blinking.

Lilly, heading into the room with Jeffries, took Izzie's stethoscope and placed it on the table in front of Donna, glancing at their suspect to gauge her reaction, but Donna didn't even flinch.

"You know what this is, don't you?" Lilly began. "I mean, after all, you've had it in your house for over a year."

"I've never seen it before," Donna replied flatly.

"It's Izzie Stevens' stethoscope, Donna," Lilly continued as she leaned closer to Donna, her voice taking on just a touch of an impatient edge. "You know because you killed her."

Donna barely blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about," she responded, almost automatically.

Lilly and Jeffries exchanged a glance, and he sat down next to Donna and fixed her with a sad, kindly smile. "I know how hard it is to lose a loved one," Jeffries began, as Lilly looked at him in surprise. "My wife was killed in a hit-and-run."

"I'm sorry," Donna replied, almost as a reflex.

"I couldn't see past the pain," Jeffries continued smoothly. "The grief was making me crazy, and I just wanted to find whoever was responsible for stealing my wife away from me, and make him pay."

"Did you find him?" Donna asked, curiosity twinkling in her otherwise vacant eyes.

"I did," Jeffries answered, and Lilly continued to stare at him in amazement. She'd known what had happened to her partner's wife, but she'd never, ever heard him talk about it. "Tracked him down a while back…even put a gun to his head…but in the end, I couldn't do it. Taking his life wouldn't bring my wife back. And…killing Izzie Stevens didn't bring your husband back, did it?"

Donna's eyes filled with tears, but she didn't answer.

"We know you killed her, Donna," Lilly added softly. "We know you went to Philly Grace looking for Izzie Stevens the day she died, and we know she was shot with a .38 registered to your late husband."

Donna remained motionless, the tears spilling over, but still, she said nothing.

"You had quite a bone to pick with Izzie," Jeffries continued. "She robbed you of the man you loved. Your kids' father. You had everything, and then you had nothing, and Izzie Stevens was responsible."

"It just--it just wasn't fair," Donna finally said, her voice choked with anger and grief. "Zach was first on that list."

"We know," Lilly replied. "And Izzie decided that her patient was more important than yours. She should have been punished."

"But instead, she got to go on her merry way. She got eight million dollars from Denny Duquette, while you're sitting here with no health insurance wondering how you're gonna keep your house, how you're gonna take care of four kids on your own," Jeffries added.

"You were grief-stricken, suffering from depression; the DA'll take all that into account, and we wanna help you…but we need you to tell us what happened," Lilly said softly.

Donna picked up the stethoscope, turning it over in her hands for several seconds before she finally began to confess. "I wanted Izzie to see that her heart…was just as sick as Zach's."

_Music: Cold Case original underscoring_

_Heart pounding, Donna pushed open the door leading out to the roof of the hospital. She'd been told that the doctors came up here regularly to take a break, and Izzie had been seen heading that way just a few minutes before._

_There she stood…near the railing, looking out at the night sky, her blonde hair fluttering gracefully in the breeze. Donna expected to feel some kind of guilt, some kind of check in her conscience warning her that, perhaps, she shouldn't be doing this…but all she could feel was hatred…and pain._

_She patted her purse, the purse that contained her husband's gun. He'd bought that gun for protection. They'd never used it for that._

_The noise of her footsteps must have attracted Izzie's attention, because she turned to look at Donna._

"_Can I help you find something?" Izzie asked kindly. "Are you lost?"_

"_Lost…" Donna repeated bitterly, almost laughing at the irony. "You could say that."_

"_What are you trying to find?" Izzie asked, coming closer._

"_The truth," Donna replied coldly._

"_Okay…" Izzie responded blankly, just the slightest flicker of fear showing in her brown eyes. Fear was good. Maybe she'd finally spill._

"_I wanna know why you stole my husband's heart," Donna ordered._

"_Excuse me?" Izzie rejoined. _

"_Denny Duquette," Donna said icily, coming closer and closer to Izzie. "He got the heart my husband was supposed to get."_

"_There…there must have been a—a mistake," Izzie stammered, reading the cold hatred in Donna's eyes._

"_There was," Dona replied menacingly. "My husband was first on the transplant list, and the next thing we know, Dr. Hahn is in his room telling us that another patient got sicker all of a sudden, and the heart was going to him."_

"_There's no proof that Denny was that patient," Izzie replied slowly._

"_Oh, there is," Donna confirmed. "People talk."_

_Izzie backed away from Donna slowly, but Donna kept coming. "I—I can explain," Izzie stammered. "Denny…he—he signed a DNR. This was it. He was tired of waiting for a heart. If he didn't get this heart, this exact heart…he'd die. There were two hearts," she continued, still backing away from the ever-nearing Donna. "Denny was supposed to get one, and your husband was supposed to get the other. But one of the hearts flatlined."_

"_So Zach paid with his life because you decided to play God, is that it?" Donna demanded. Izzie was silent._

"_Answer me!" Donna shrieked, near hysterics._

"_Denny…Denny died anyway," Izzie protested weakly. "I lost someone, same as you."_

"_Same as me?" Donna repeated bitterly. "Same as me? No, you did not lose Denny same as me. You lost Denny because he was doomed from the beginning. I lost Zach because you took him from me…you stole him from me. You manipulated his statistics somehow, and I want to know how you did it."_

_Izzie tried to back up, but she realized she was at the railing, and soon Donna was leaning over her, grabbing the stethoscope from around her neck. Izzie looked down nervously._

"_All right," she said, raising her arms in a gesture of surrender, and Donna backed up slightly, still gripping the stethoscope._

"_Denny was on the portable LVAD…and I…I cut the LVAD wire to stop his heart so he'd get the donor heart," she explained, tears filling her eyes. _

_If Donna was angry before, she was furious now. She plugged the stethoscope into Izzie's ears, then pressed the cold metal to the doctor's heart. "You hear that?" she demanded hysterically. "That's your heart. Your black, evil heart. Maybe it's healthy, but you need a transplant, too. You can't just play God because you think your patient deserves to live more than my husband does!" she shrieked._

_Izzie was sobbing now. "I loved Denny," she protested._

_Donna whipped the gun out of her purse. "I loved Zach," she retorted coldly, then, before Izzie even had a chance to react, she pulled the trigger._

Music: The Fray—"Over My Head"

Donna scrawled her signature across the bottom of her confession, then placed the stethoscope on top of it and rose from her seat. Jeffries gently clapped her in handcuffs and led her from the room, through the squad room, and to the uniformed officers waiting just outside.

Miranda Bailey left the Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic, cooing softly to Tuck, who was balanced on her hip, a wide grin on his face as he toyed with his mother's hair. Bailey turned slightly to free it from his chubby grip, and in doing so, saw Denny leaning against the railing on the roof of the clinic, grinning slightly at her. Stunned, Bailey could only stop and stare for a few seconds until Denny faded into oblivion.

Scotty meandered down a hallway at Headquarters, up on the top floor, where very few people ever were. He glanced down the hall, studying each doorway, and finally approached one, where he peeked in the window. Seeing nothing, he tested the door, found it open, and poked his head in to take a look around. As he studied the room, a wicked grin crossed his face, and he closed the door, tapped it with his fingers a couple times, then, his grin broadening, headed back down the hallway.

Officials from UNOS knocked on the door of Richard Webber's office, and, with a reluctant sigh, he motioned them in. They sat down across from his desk, looking stern and disapproving.

Outside the Chief's office, Alex Karev walked along the breezeway, studying a patient's chart. He glanced up then to see men in UNOS uniforms carrying boxes of documents from the Chief's office. Webber turned then, and met Alex's eyes. Alex stared back, almost defiantly, and the Chief finally turned away and sank down into his desk, cradling his head in his hands. Alex, satisfied, started to walk away, but saw, to his utter surprise, Zachary Mortenson standing in the hallway, plain as day. Alex stared for a moment as Zach nodded his thanks, then turned to walk away, disappearing as he did so. Alex shook his head in disbelief, then smiled slightly and went back to studying the chart.

Lilly approached Meredith Grey in the hospital hallway and handed her Izzie's stethoscope. She spoke to Meredith for a few minutes, telling her what had happened, and Meredith listened attentively, her green eyes slowly filling with tears.

In another part of the hospital, George O'Malley walked past his former wife, Callie Torres, as she headed into the on-call room. She stopped, and their eyes met briefly. George gave her a slight smile, which she returned, then proceeded into the on-call room without a backward glance.

Back in the squad room, Vera was packing up Izzie's evidence box when he came across the photo of her as Bethany Whisper, her long golden hair tumbling over her shoulders and her curves accentuated in black lacy lingerie. Suddenly, he found the picture being gently yanked from his hands, and he looked up to see Kat Miller giving him one of her famous withering glances. He shrugged and gave her what he hoped was an innocent grin, and she rolled her eyes slightly, put the picture in the box, and replaced the lid.

Stillman and Jeffries put the box in its final resting place on the shelf, and Jeffries took the black marker and wrote "Closed" on the end of it. The two exchanged a slight smile, then Stillman placed a supportive hand on Jeffries' shoulder as the two of them turned to leave.

Meredith Grey smiled brightly as she opened the door to reveal Alex, Cristina, and George all standing on her doorstep. She beamed as she let them in. This was the first time since Izzie's death, really, that they'd all gotten together. Soon, wine and conversation were both flowing, Alex and George were teasing each other good-naturedly, Cristina was mocking them both, and Meredith was leaning her head against Derek's shoulder while he smiled contentedly and played with her long hair. Suddenly, Meredith looked up to see Izzie standing in the doorway, wearing a pink sweater, her hair up in a bun. Izzie looked around the room at her friends, smiled wistfully, then turned around and walked out.

**A/N: Thanks for reading this; hope you really enjoyed it! Next up: "Fools In Love," the sequel to "Every Time Two Fools Collide." Look for it later this week!**


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